The State Hermitage Museum: Hermitage News

Friends of the Hermitage Club: Opening of the New 2004-2005 Season

On 14 October 2004 the State Hermitage opened the new 2004-2005 season of its Friends of the Hermitage Club.

The State Hermitage became the first Russian museum to organize a Society of Friends back in November 1996. The initiative to organize a Club came from State Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovsky and it took shape as one of the museum’s special development programs which give important support to the numerous restoration, reconstruction, educational and research projects. The Club brings together individual and corporate members. Both Russian citizens and foreigners can be members. The Club also coordinates the activity of associated societies of Friends of the Hermitage abroad (Great Britain, Canada, The Netherlands, and the USA).

During the 2004-2005 season, new privileges will be extended to members of the Friends of the Hermitage Club. The membership card will provide its owner with the possibility of visiting the new Art Restoration and Storage Complex in Staraya Derevnya free of charge and without the need to wait in line.

At the meeting which opened the new season, Friends were shown the new building of the Storage Complex. There was also a surprise visit to the Laboratory for Expert Restoration of Easel Paintings.

In keeping with tradition, State Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovsky opened the new season of the Friends of the Hermitage Club. Hermitage Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Development V. Yu. Matveev spoke about the new storage complex. Then the guests saw the latest museum product, a film entitled The Hermitage which has been produced and released jointly by the State Hermitage and Master Video Studio.

The Art Restoration and Storage Center (ARSC) of the State Hermitage in Staraya Derevnya. The New Storage Facility of the State Hermitage

Unlike traditional storage facilities, the new museum facility works on the “open storage” principle. The pathway open to visitors is nearly one kilometer long. The main storage building contains the Laboratory for Expert Restoration of Easel Paintings as well as various collections from the Department of Western European Art, Department of the History of Russian Culture, Oriental Department, and Department of Archeology of Eastern Europe and Siberia.

There are around three and a half thousand canvases in the reserve holdings of Russian paintings. This is where Russian furniture from the epoch of Peter the Great until the start of the last century is held, and also has the reserve collection of European furniture from the 16th - 19th centuries. In the Carriage Room the public can see a number of interesting models such as a vis-a-vis carriage made in about 1761 in Paris and presented by I.I. Betskoy as a gift to Catherine the Great. There is also a ceremonial carriage made by the Russian master craftsman Ivan Yakovlev to take court ladies down to Moscow on the occasion of the coronation of Alexander II.

Among the other exhibits which one can see here are unique items of very large size such as the tent which Turkish Sultan Selim III presented to Catherine the Great in 1793. The walls of the tent are made of cashmere fabric that has been richly decorated with gold thread embroidery: they are 250 cm high and enclose a surface that measures 5.1 by 10.3 meters. There are also huge tapestries, including several made in Flanders in the last quarter of the 17th century to designs based on Ovid’s Metamorphosis by the famous French painter Charles Lebrun.

Technical Equipment of the Storage Facility

The storage facility is equipped with its own computerized security system. The buildings have an ESA fire detection and alarm system made by the Finnish supplier ESMI. The automatic fire-extinguishing system of the storage facility has been built around a basic unit provided by ESMI; it delivers fire-extinguishing gas to all premises of the storage facility, which covers 7,835 square meters. The buildings are also equipped with a water fire-fighting system and have their own pumping station. In addition to the multi-faceted fire fighting equipment, the storage facility has an air conditioning and ventilation system which makes it possible to maintain the micro-climate essential for storage premises.

The Hermitage: The film

In 2004 the Hermitage and the Master Video Studio jointly released their first licensed museum product, a film called The Hermitage. The film has been conceived to show the Hermitage as a whole and acquaints viewers with the history, architectural aspect of the buildings and halls, and also with separate works of art and monuments of culture kept in the museum.

There are two versions of the film:
Version One - The Hermitage in Time and Space is a film which tells about the history of the Winter Palace, about various artistic schools and well known masters.
Version Two - The Hermitage is a sort of walking tour through the rooms of the museum. Classical music performed by the State Hermitage Orchestra provides a special atmosphere.
The production and release of the film was supervised by State Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovsky. The director was Vladimir Ptashchenko. Natalya Mikova, Maria Kalinina, and Vladimir Ptashchenko wrote the script. The filming was done on digital equipment provided free of charge by ZAO SONY CIS.

Dr. Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage Museum at the opening

At the opening

At the storage facility

At the Laboratory for Expert Restoration of Easel Paintings