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Annual Report of the State Hermitage, 2003 The State Hermitage's Annual Report for 2003 has been released by the Slavia Publishing House. The Report carries an introductory article entitled "The Year of the Double-Headed Eagle" written by museum director Mikhail Piotrovsky. During the year 2003, St Petersburg celebrated its 300th anniversary. All 12 months were filled with work relating to this big event and it turned out well, both for the city and for the museum. For the Hermitage, the year was symbolized by the return of several important two-headed eagle sculptures, resurrected symbolic guardians of Russia. Three gilded eagles appeared on the main gates of the Winter Palace as part of a new entrance to the Hermitage. Several dozen terracotta eagles were returned to the cornice of the New Hermitage, where there was constant restoration work on the interior rooms as well as the facades of this masterpiece of museum architecture. One double-headed eagle has been placed atop the standard of the Life Guards, Grenadiers' Regiment, which was solemnly returned to Russia by Great Britain in an act filled with symbolism and then was housed in the newly opened Museum of the Guards within the General Staff building of the Hermitage. The Hermitage honored the anniversary by presenting a number of gifts to its compatriots, all of which has been described in a specially published book. The Great Courtyard of the Winter Palace was restored and became the main entrance to the museum. Both the Great Courtyard and the Palace Square truly became part of the museum's space in the city. Construction of the first building of the Hermitage's new Storage Facility was completed. An important feature of this building is that there is open access to art works held in storage, so that the overall accessibility of the Hermitage's collections to the general public is greatly increased. The War Gallery of the Winter Palace, which is a great monument to the history of Russian statehood, has been restored and given a new lighting system. A Museum of Porcelain has been opened in the Lomonosov Factory. The galleries of Italian painting have been renovated. A new exhibition of Byzantine icons has been created. The Hermitage has enriched its collection of masterpieces of the weaver's art, adding a Sumah carpet and a Russian tapestry, the Elephant and Horse. A post-Sassanid silver plate has been added to the world-renowned Hermitage collection of oriental silver. We offered to our guests the exhibition Founder of Petersburg, which turned out to be the most heavily visited exhibition of the world during 2003. A number of different exhibitions told us about the art of the grotesque, about Krzysztof Penderecki's scores, about the sculptures of Eduardo Chillida and the paintings of Cy Twombly, about Alexander Menshikov and Chinese folk art, about Alexander I, Napoleon and Josephine, and about the art of Maurits Escher. Petersburg's anniversary was ushered in by an exhibition devoted to Ladoga, an ancient Russian capital. We put on exhibitions about Alexander Nevsky in the cities of Staraya Ladoga and Novgorod. We launched the grandiose project called The Hermitage in Siberia with an exhibition in Novosibirsk. The reviewers of Salehard was delighted with Treasures of the Ob' River Region. St Petersburg's 300th anniversary was marked in Amsterdam by the exhibition From the Hermitage with Love, while the Hermitage Rooms in London displayed old photos of Petersburg and oil sketches by Rubens. There was a great public response to the Rubens exhibition in Barcelona and to the exhibition of Rembrandt and his school in Dijon. Together with the holding company Interros, the Hermitage organized an exhibition in Paris called When Russia Spoke French. We insistently reminded the whole world about our city and its anniversary. Finally, we made a present to our visitors and friends in the form of a new journal called Hermitage, which is published in both Russian and English language editions. We also launched a Virtual Academy of the Hermitage on the internet and it is, of course, bilingual. This year the Friends of the Hermitage were quite generous. Members of the State Council gave us a "small" Kolyvan vase. The company ALROSA presented a portrait of Nicholas II by Repin. The President of Indonesia gave the museum a gigantic sculpture of the mythical bird Garuda. The Yamalo-Nenets region offered a Byzantine plate depicting the legend of Alexander of Macedon. We were made all the richer by such acquisitions as golden Sarmat vessels, items of jewelry, and new works of porcelain. With help from the Friends, we restored the rooms exhibiting Venetian painting and put new lighting into the Neva Gallery, the Seventh Reserved Apartment. and the Majolica Room. We also were given remarkable exhibitions of CoBRA, Nicolas de Stael, Mark Rothko, Georges Rouault, and video installations by Bill Viola and Shirin Neshat. Two of the year's events were truly special. A session of the State Council was held in the St George Hall of the Winter Palace. The sharp debates on the fate of our culture brought to life many measures and decisions which have been so very important in the preservation of our cultural heritage. The other noteworthy event involved the broad public. On the city's official birthday the Hermitage was open day and night. Thousands of people could take advantage of the White Nights and stroll through the Hermitage, listen to music, enjoy the artists dressed up in costumes from the film Russian Ark, view the film itself, and make prints of drawings on an old printing press. It was an opportunity to celebrate in the Hermitage. We never before saw so many smart and well-educated people, such a great number of visitors, all of them drawn here by the chance to visit and experience the Hermitage in a new way. This was the best present for us all. |
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