In the year 2000 an exhibition entitled The Stroganoffs. The Palace and Collections of a Russian Noble Family enjoyed great success at its showing in the Portland Art Museum and the Kimbell Art Museum in the USA. The exhibition was jointly organized by the State Hermitage, the Russian Museum, the Museum of the Academy of Arts, the Pavlovsk State Museum and Park, and the Russian State Historical Archive. According to the terms of their contract, the Receiving Side paid compensation to the State Hermitage to cover the costs of the expert study and restoration work carried out on the exhibits for this show.

As a collective member of the charitable Stroganov Foundation, the Hermitage used part of this compensation which it received to restore works from the Stroganov collection held in the Hermitage, and applied another part to the restoration of the Mineral (Mineralogical) Cabinet of the Stroganov Palace in St Petersburg. In 2001 the Hermitage and the Russian Museum concluded an Agreement on conditions for financing the major repair and restoration work to be done.

The repair and restoration work was carried out by the Architectural Restoration Workshop ¹ 3 of the Lenproektrestavratsia Institute directed by V.I. Sholokhov, following a budget which was confirmed by the State Committee on State Control Over the Use and Preservation of Monuments of History and Culture in St Petersburg.

In keeping with the terms of the Agreement and on the basis of Protocols which were signed at each stage by a Working Group of representatives from the State Russian Museum and the State Hermitage over the period 2002 - 2005, on 26 May 2005 the parties signed a Protocol on the Completion of the Work in its full measure and in strict accord with the project documentation.