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The New Hermitage's Hall of Twenty Columns
Reopens Following Reconstruction On 6 April 2004 the New Hermitage's Hall of Twenty Columns, a remarkable example of interior design for museums dating from the first half of the 19th century, was ceremoniously reopened. On 7 August 2003 the State Hermitage and Confindustria, the Confederation of Italian Industrialists, signed an agreement whereby charitable funds were made available for the restoration of the Hall of Twenty Columns and the display of art from Ancient Italy that it housed. The agreement was signed by Director of the State Hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky and President of Confindustria Antonio d'Amato. The conclusion of this agreement marked the beginning of an ‘Italian project' providing for reconstruction of all the rooms in the State Hermitage's Department of the Ancient World in which the art of ancient Italy and Rome is presented. The planned restoration includes installation of modern lighting, alarm systems, and new display cases as well as an expansion in the number of items put on display. It takes account of the fact that the Hermitage collection of art objects from Ancient Italy and Rome is one of the most important in the world. A large number of the items come from archeological excavations on the territory of Italy and entered the Hermitage from the holdings of two of the best known Italian collectors of the 19th century, Dr. Pizzati and the Marquis Gianpietro Campana. The sponsors indicated their preference for the Hall of Twenty Columns, considering it to be one of the best known and most visited rooms in the Hermitage. This magnificent hall has two rows of columns made of gray granite decorated with ornamental painting. It also has numerous architectural details made of both artificial and natural marble, compositions featuring many figures that were executed in the manner of Ancient Greece. The Hall of Twenty Columns was created by the architect of the New Hermitage Leo von Klenz, who was a leading theoretician of museum construction at the time. The hall was intended for display of antique vases and the architect especially designed for it cases and table surfaces that were manufactured in the factories of P. G. Gambs, A.I. Tur, and E. A. Miller. The walls of the hall were decorated with painted panels on subjects taken from the frescoes in Etruscan burial chambers that were discovered not long before the construction of the building and which inspired the imagination of architect Leo von Klenz. The design of the mosaic floor is reminiscent of antique patterns. Both the architecture and the interior decoration of the hall recreate for the visitor an artistic image of a gracious ancient temple. In the course of the restoration work the wall painting was cleaned; the pigment layer of the painting and the plaster foundation were both strengthened. The mosaic floo, made in the Petershof lapidary works in 1851 according to a design prepared by Leo von Klenz, has also been restored. The refinished display cases have been fitted with shock-resistant glass. A special protective glass cover was prepared for the bronze statue of a reclining youth (Etruscan, mid 4th century B.C.) - a masterpiece of Etruscan sculpture. The new alarm system was extended to the cases, display windows and table, thereby making it possible to exhibit Etruscan vessels of bucchero ware which previously were kept in the museum storerooms. Lamps have been mounted in the wall cabinets and installed on the ceiling and cornices so as to illuminate the exhibit items and bring out the beauty of the hall's paintings. During the work six door panels have been restored. The doors were made from valuable varieties of wood. The restoration of the Hall of Twenty Columns is one more way in which the150th anniversary of the New Hermitage's building is being observed. Among the dignitaries present at the opening ceremony were St Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvienko, Deputy Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade of Italy Adolfo Urso, Ambassador of the Italian Republic Gianfranco Facco Bonetti, General Consul of Italy in St Petersburg Marco Ricci, Confindustria President Antonio d'Amato, Confindustria Vice President Giancarlo Cerutti, Mr Sandro Salmorai, Mr Silvio Fortuna, Mr Giuseppe Preciosi, and Director of the Institute of Foreign Trade of Italy Ugo Calzoni. Invited members of the business and cultural elites of Italy and also Italian journalists came to St Petersburg for the festivities. Restored exhibition space in the Hall of Twenty Columns The exhibition area devoted to the art of Ancient Italy between the late 9th and 2nd centuries B.C. has been redone and expanded. New display cases show almost all of the Hermitage's collection of painted vases from Lucca. Twelve wall cabinets next to the windows of the hall accommodate two groups of painted Etruscan ceramics which were not previously on display: the Torcop and the Phantom groups. Etruscan painted ceramics is shown in a new manner, with more strict adherence to the principle of chronological order. The display of Apulian ceramics has been enlarged: this is made in the Gnathian technique, painting with overlaid pigments on a black lacquer. The Hermitage collection of Gnathian ceramics is one of the most important in the world outside Italy and, without a doubt, it evokes the interest of visitors. The display of Etruscan bronzes and military paraphernalia of the ancient Italians has been significantly increased. Southern Italian vases are now presented in a way that reflects new discoveries which allow more precise dating and attribution. The new display facilities have made it possible to present masterpieces from the Hermitage collection such as the so-called ‘Queen of Vases' and a bronze Etruscan statue of a youth (4th century B.C.) An antique vase found in the city of Cumae in Southern Italy was given the name Regina Vasorum or ‘Queen of Vases' because of the exceptional beauty of its proportions and unusual decoration in the form of fine fluting on the surface of the vessel, and also two raised painted friezes in relief on the upper portion and main body. In antiquity the vase was evidently used in rituals. On the upper portion of the vase scenes of a myth about the goddess of fertility Demeter are depicted: she instructed the hero Triptolemus in the ways of agriculture. Scenes from the myth of Demeter were played out in religious-theatrical presentations (the mysteries) in the holy place of Eleusis. It may be that the frieze with its many figures that decorates the ‘Queen of Vases' depicts scenes from the Elisinian mysteries showing Demeter, her daughter Kora, Triptolemus, Aphrodite, and the founder of the cult of Eubulia. These figures, modeled in a mold and then covered with gold and painted, are copies of the famous sculptures that were created by Greek masters. The statue of an Etruscan youth is one of the rarest examples of bronze Etruscan sculpture from the beginning of the 4th century B.C. in which features of the ‘neoclassical' world of the Etruscans have been incorporated. The statue of a reclining youth is fixed to the cover of a cinerary urn. The manner in which his face has been rendered reminds us of Late Classical Greek sculptures from the same period. |
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