# Hermitage - Biggest World Museum



## ainttelling (Jun 3, 2009)

Caravaggio said:


> This museum must be one of the best in the entire world.That is to say it comes right after the Louvre and the Vatican Museum's in the importance of its collection.


Clearly, when it comes to importance, the National Palace Museum in Taipei is not even worth mentioning?


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## buho (Sep 15, 2008)

And Metropolitan of New York, el Prado museum, National Gallery, British Museum...


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

In terms of museum size the Hermitage is the largest 24 km (15 miles) of gallery to walk through, 3 million items.

In terms of paintings, the Louvre is king -30,000 paintings, prints and drawings (by comparison the Hermitage has 12,000, the Prado 8,600). The Louvre also has thousands of sculptures.

In terms of overall art/ antiquities collection the British Museum has 6 million items, the V&A in London that specialises in decorative arts has 4 million.

The largest private art collection belongs to the Queen, who's Royal Collection houses 900,000 pieces.

The museum of the best quality, in terms of Western Art is the Louvre, closely followed by the Hermitage and the Prado. The British Museum, Metropolitan in NYC, National Palace Museum in Taipei, Vatican Museum are also major stalwarts.


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## JoseRodolfo (Jul 9, 2003)

:cheers:


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## tpe (Aug 10, 2005)

the spliff fairy said:


> The museum of the best quality, in terms of Western Art is the Louvre, closely followed by the Hermitage and the Prado. The British Museum, Metropolitan in NYC, National Palace Museum in Taipei, Vatican Museum are also major stalwarts.


"Best" is perhaps too subjective. Don't you agree? 

But if we are talking about encylopedic museums, then it's indeed very difficult to top the Louvre, which is exceptionally strong in all of its 8 major curatorial departments. [And had Kerchache and Chirac had their way, the collection would have probably absorbed all that is now at the Branly!]

But I would also like to note that the Vatican Museum is really a multiplicity of museums with a combined collection that goes beyond mere counting. Just the Sistine Chapel and the Stanze della Segnatura are enough to eclipse any other collection of the same period and perhaps beyond.

The moral of the story, I guess, is that "biggest" does not necessarily equate to "best". 

The Hermitage is great not because of the size of the collection; rather, it is because of a choice body of works of art in the collection that is widely considered to contain some of the greatest in all of European art.


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## Caravaggio (Oct 17, 2009)

Let me clarify my statement when it comes to some of the worlds most famous Western art pieces the Louvre and the Vatican museums clearly top the list.However museums like the Prado and the MET also contain rich collections covering human development in art. Most people will recognize the Sistine chapel over Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son from the Hermitage or the Garden of Earthly Delights triptych by Bosch in the Prado.The Taipei Museum is also incredibly rich in Chinese artifacts.Its a great museum.


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## tpe (Aug 10, 2005)

What a lot of these museums have in common is that the core of their collections stem from the royal/imperial/pontifical collections of years past. They enshrine/embody the tastes and cultivation of many of the great monarchs and popes, in a way that goes beyond fashion.

Hence, we would not have Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, had it not been for the quirky and sometimes inexplicable taste of Felipe II. The Emperor Qinglong's preference for archaistic styles accounts for so much of what is the very greatest in the Taipei Collection. And some of most exquisite collections of antique engraved gems would have been dispersed long ago, had it not been for the acquisitive greed of the Empress Catherine.


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## Caravaggio (Oct 17, 2009)

Wow tpe u sound very smart and articulate I agree with you 100%


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## tpe (Aug 10, 2005)

Caravaggio said:


> Wow tpe u sound very smart and articulate I agree with you 100%



Thanks Caravaggio. But like you and everyone else on this thread, I just happen to love art.


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## Fenol (Feb 8, 2004)

Golden Collection:


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## onthetopo (Aug 30, 2007)

stalin blew up the cathedral of christ the saviour 
i wonder why he kept the hermitage, but it's very fortunate the collection survived stalin and hitler.


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## Caravaggio (Oct 17, 2009)

Great pictures congrats to all who contributed in posting wonderful images of the collections that encompass this museum.


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## Fenol (Feb 8, 2004)

Revolution. Oсtober 1917.


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## vladorlando (Jul 30, 2007)

onthetopo said:


> stalin blew up the cathedral of christ the saviour
> i wonder why he kept the hermitage, but it's very fortunate the collection survived stalin and hitler.


 Unfortunatelly this is not so good . hno:hno:

The Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings in 1930 and 1931 resulted in the departure of some of the most valuable paintings from the collection of the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad to western museums. Several of the paintings had been in the Hermitage Collection since its creation by Empress Catherine the Great. About two hundred and fifty paintings were sold, including fifty masterpieces by Van Eyck, Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens, Raphael, and other important artists. Andrew Mellon donated the twenty-one paintings he purchased from the Hermitage to the United States Government in 1937. They became the nucleus of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.

In the late 1920s, the Soviet government urgently needed foreign currency to finance the rapid industrialization of Russia ordered in the first Five Year Plan. The government had already sold off collections of jewelry, furniture and icons seized from the Russian nobility, wealthy classes, and the church.

In February 1928, the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad, along with the Russian Museum, was ordered to make a list of art works worth at least two million rubles, for export. A special agency called 'Antiquariat' was created under the Narkompros (the People's Commisariat of Enlightenment) and opened an office in Leningrad to oversee the sale. The Hermitage was instructed to sell 250 paintings for at least 5000 roubles each, plus engravings and a number of golden treasures from ancient Scythia.

The sale was secret, but word was quietly spread to selected western art dealers and collectors that the paintings were on the market.

The first foreign buyer to purchase Hermitage paintings was Calouste Gulbenkian, the founder of the Iraq Petroleum Company, who began buying paintings in early 1930, trading them for oil with the Russians. The organizers of the sale were dissatisfied with the amounts they received from Gulbenkian, so they looked for other buyers.

Francis Matthieson, a young German art dealer, was asked by the Soviet Government to compile a list of the hundred paintings in Russian collections, which should never be sold under any circumstances. He was most surprised to be shown several of these paintings not long after in Paris by Gulbenkian. Gulbenkian wanted him to act as his agent on further purchases, but Matthieson instead formed a consortium with Colnaghi's of London and Knoedler & Co of New York, which in 1930 and 1931 bought twenty-one paintings from the Russians, all of which were bought by Andrew Mellon, who had been offered first refusal. [1]

Andrew Mellon, an American banker, Secretary of the Treasury for Presidents Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, art collector and, at the time, American Ambassador to Great Britain, had conceived the idea of founding a National Gallery for the United States modelled after the National Gallery in London. He heard about the Hermitage sale through the art gallery he usually used for his purchases, the Knoedler Gallery of New York, Paris and London.


The Lute Player by Antoine Watteau, was purchased for the Hermitage by Catherine the Great in 1767. It was sold in May 1930 to Calouste Gulbenkian, who sold it in 1934 to the Metropolitan Museum in New York.Mellon's syndicate bought groups of important paintings from the Hermitage, including Van Eyck's Annunciation and Raphael's The Alba Madonna. The latter painting was sold for $1,166,400, the largest sum ever paid for a single painting until that time.

By the end of 1931, Mellon had acquired twenty-one paintings for a total price of $6,654,000. He donated these paintings in 1937 to the United States, along with the money to build a museum to house them. These paintings were the heart of the National Gallery's collection.

The sale was secret until November 4, 1933, when it was reported in the New York Times that several Hermitage paintings had been purchased by the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

The sale came to an end in 1934, possibly as a result of a letter to Stalin from the deputy director of the Hermitage, Joseph Orbeli, protesting the sale of Russia's treasures. The director of the Hermitage, Boris Legran, who had been brought to the museum to conduct the sale, was dismissed in 1934 and replaced by Orbeli.

In the 1990s, following the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Parliament of the Russian Federation passed a new law prohibiting the sale of Russian art treasures to foreign countries.










Raphael -Madonna Alba -now in Washington NG











Raphael -Saint George - now in Washington NG












Titian -Venus -now in Washington NG











Rembrandt - Women with a Pink and 8 :nuts:^^(!!!!!) other paintings of Rembrandt - now in Washington NG 












Anthony Van Dyck- Portrait of a Flemish lady and 5 :nuts:^^(!!!) other paintings of Van Dyck - now in Washington NG 











Botticelli- Adoration - now in Washington NG 











Vincent van Gogh -Night Cafe -now in Washington NG












Antoine Watteau - Mezzetin - now in Metropolitan museum 











Van Eyck - Annunciation - now in Washington NG


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## Fenol (Feb 8, 2004)

The Title of World's Best Museums the Hermitage was given users the world's largest travel portal "TripAdvisor":


*Top 25 Museums — World*

1. State Hermitage Museum and Winter Palace St. Petersburg, Russia
2. National Museum of Anthropology Mexico City, Mexico
3. Art Institute of Chicago Chicago, Illinois
4. Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Jerusalem, Israel
5. Frick Collection New York City, New York
6. National Gallery of Art Washington DC, District of Columbia
7. Hagia Sophia Museum / Church (Ayasofya) Istanbul, Turkey
8. Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City, New York
9. Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Tucson, Arizona
10. Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Oswiecim, Poland
11. The Museum of Qin Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses Xi'an, China
12. National Naval Aviation Museum Pensacola, Florida
13. The Acropolis Museum Athens, Greece
14. The National WWII Museum New Orleans, Louisiana
15. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC
16. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC
17. Musee du Louvre Paris, France
18. National Museum of Scotland Edinburgh, United Kingdom
19. British Museum London, United Kingdom
20. Prado Museum Madrid, Spain
21. Museo Cappella Sansevero Naples, Italy
22. Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum Springfield, Illinois
23. National Museum of the U.S. Air Force Dayton, Ohio
24. Chihuly Garden and Glass Seattle, Washington
25. USS Midway Museum San Diego, California



http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/TravelersChoice-Attractions-cMuseums-g1


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