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French Masterpieces of the 15th-18th Centuries from the State Hermitage Museum Collection The exhibition in the Hall of Twelve Columns in the New Hermitage is dedicated to the memory of the exceptional Hermitage scholar Irina Novoselskaya (1928-2006). For more than half a century her professional interests, talent and energy were channeled into studying the treasures of the State Hermitage Museum’s collection of French drawings. From the time of Catherine the Great, when the museum was founded, in the sphere of graphic art it was French drawings in particular which were the main focus of the collection, which most accurately conveys the relationship of new Russian art, the art of St. Petersburg as it was being constructed, towards the classical and contemporary artistic heritage of Europe. In this way in the 20th century the classification and scientific study of more than five thousand drawings by old French masters has been one of the most pressing problems for the Hermitage’s Drawing Department. At the exhibition more than 92 paintings of the French school from the 15th-18th centuries are on display. Eighty-two of them had been chosen from Irina Novoselskaya’s catalogues: French Drawings of the 18th Century from the Collection of the Hermitage (1983), Jean-Baptiste Greuze. Drawings from the State Hermitage Museum Collection (1977), 17th Century French Drawing in the State Hermitage Museum Collection (1999), French Drawings of the 15th-16th Centuries from the Collection of the Hermitage (2004). Among the works on display are those of such well known artists as Francois Clouet and Jacques Bellange, Nicolas Poussin and Claude Gellee, Antoine Watteau and Gabriel de Saint-Aubin. These drawings compliment 10 sheets by famous artists-ornamentalists at the turn of the 17th-18th century, whose works make up a substantial part of the collection of French drawings at the State Hermitage Museum – without them any presentation would be incomplete. The choice of these sheets was made using V.G. Shevchenko’s catalogue, the curator for this collection, published in 1995, One Hundred Drawings by French Ornamentalists: the Second Half of the 17th Century to the First Half of the 18th Century. In a different section of the exhibition there are architectural, ornamental scenes and drawings of theatrical decorations. Included among them are the unique drawings of Charles de Wailly, Gilles-Marie Oppenord and Nicolas Pineau. For the exhibition the State Hermitage Museum has published a scientific catalogue French Masterpieces of the 15th-18th Centuries. The exhibition curators are Irina Grigorieva, the manager for the Drawings Section and Alexey Mitin – a researcher of the same section in the Department of Western European Art. |
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Copyright © 2011 State Hermitage Museum |
