The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow [antikvár]

b; THE PUSHKIN MUSEUM of Fine Arts in Moscow houses an outstanding collection of works of art from all over the world, second in the Soviet Union only to the Hermitage in Leningrad. It was estahlislied on the initiative of Ivan Tsvetaycv, Professor at Moscow University and father of the Russian poetess Marina Tsvetayeva. The funds for building the museum and acquiring the exhibits were gathered by subscription throughout Russia. The foundation stone was laid on August 17, 1898. on the site of what was once a coach-yard in Volkhonka Street. The museum was built to a design by Roman Klein, Academician of Architecture. The marble for the facing was brought from the Urals, and for the interiors, from the quarries of Italy, Belgium, Hungary and Greece. The museum was conceived as a temple of art, and its rooms, decorated with wall paintings and expensive coloured stone, were designed in sucli a way as to remind the visitor of the architecture of various epoclis and peoples. The museum was opened on May 31, 1912. At that lime its collection consisted mainly of plaster casts of the most famous works of ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman sculpture, and also of Western European sculpture of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Early in the twentieth century the museum acquired the collection of the Egyptologist Vladimir Golenishchev, consisting of six thousand authentic items exemplifying the art and culture of ancient Egypt. The most artistically valuable part of all tlie museum's collections is the picture gallery. Started in 1924, it is hy now widely known. In the twenties and thirties it received works from the Hermitage and from private collections nationalized after the October Revolution, and. in 1948. a number of canvases from Hie forjiier Museum of Modern \Vesteru Art. The museum also acquired from lime to lime many excellent paintings iis gifts from artists and owners of private collections. At