Final Season Event in the Hermitage Friends’ Club

On 31 May, 2010 the Hermitage Friends’ Club held its final event of the season 2009-2010. The evening program included preview of the exhibition Wind in the pines... 5000 years of Korean Art one day before its official opening.

The Friends’ meeting opened with the introduction by Prof. Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage Museum. In his speech, Prof. Piotrovsky mentioned that the exhibition is a unique cultural event not only for the Hermitage and St Petersburg but for all Russia because for the first time the exceptional character of Korean art is comprehensively reflected at such wide scale.

Dr. Tatiana Arapova, curator of the exhibition, told the Friends about the outstanding examples of Korean art from the collection of the National Museum of Korea demonstrated at the exhibition: over 300 pieces from the excavations of king’s burials, Buddhist sculpture of the 7th-16th centuries, ceramics and porcelain of the 3rd-18th centuries, silk scrolls and books. Twelve objects have been assigned the status of a ‘national treasure’.

Friends of the Hermitage were the first to see the unique exhibition and to leisurely enjoy exclusive works of art in an evening museum free of other visitors.

The introduction by Prof. Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage Museum

Tatiana Arapova, curator of the exhibition

At the ceremony

At the exhibition Wind in the pines... 5000 years of Korean Art