The Hermitage [antikvár]

The Picture Gallery constitutes the Hermitage's principal section, as alsó the oldest in point of time. It came intő being with the acquisition, in 1763, of 225 paintings by Western European masters from the Berlin merchant Johann-Ernest Gotzkowsky. Over the next two centuries the Museum's collection increased to 8,000 pictures. Practically all schools and trends that were ever in vogue in Western Europe since the beginnings of easel painting down to the middle of the twentieth century are represented in this collection. The numerous masterpieces on exhibit or in storage have brought the gallery world-wide fame. Every year, more than 3,000,000 visitors from all over the Soviet Union ancl many foreign countries discover for themselves the celebrated creations of the artistic genius of the peoples of Western Europe. The first specimens of Western European painting began to reach the shores of the Neva shortly after the founding of the new Russian capital by Peter I. That was a period when Russia's contacts with Western European culture and art had already fallen into a pattern: young Russian artists were perfecting their skills in Francé and Italy; painters from Germany, Francé and Switzerland were being invited to work in St Petersburg; and the first purchases of canvases were being made in Holland and Belgium. In 1716, for instance, 121 pictures were bought for Peter I in Holland by Osip Solovyov and 117 were acquired at the same time in Brussels and Antwerp by a commercial agent named Yuri Kologrivov. Shortly after that the collection was augmented by 119 more canvases sent to Peter I by two English merchants, Evan and Elsen. Predominant in Peter I's collections were Dutch and Flemish paintings. Jacob Stáhlin, the tsar's biographer, recorded that his favourite artists were Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck, Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, Jan Steen, and Adriáén van Ostade, and that his best-liked subjects were genre scenes depicting "Dutch rustics". These Dutch proclivities should not be taken as merely reflecting the personal tastes of Peter "the shipmaster": the burgher democracy of Holland, which had found such vigorous expression in that country's painting, had mucii in common with the progressive reforms in the field of culture and home life, introduced by the tsar in line with the course of national development.