Meeting at the Hermitage Friends' Club

On 22 February, 2002, the Hermitage Friends' Club hosted a meeting on occasion of the 150th anniversary of the New Hermitage. A big program was prepared for the Club's members. Friends of the Hermitage visited the exhibitions Nicholas I and the New Hermitage and Münzkabinett at the New Hermitage and were showed scenes from Gaetano Donizetti's opera Don Pascuale performed by St. Petersburg Opera Chamber Music Theater (artistic director Yury Aleksandrov).
The Hermitage Friends were introduced to a rare masterpiece of early Renaissance tapestry, Assumption. Burial. Crowning (early 16th century). This tapestry, one of the four in the Virgin Mary Story Cycle, was restored in August 2001 - February, 2002, by the De Wit Koninklijke Manufactuur van Wandtapijten (Mechelen, Belgium) according to the program of cooperation between the Hermitage and Metropolitan Museum (New York). In the 19th century tapestries of this cycle were purchased by the collectors A.P. Bazilevsky and prince G.G. Gagarin. They passed to the Imperial Hermitage in 1884-1887 and became one of the gems in its collection.

Mikhail B. Piotrovsky, Director of the Hermitage, showing the tapestry Assumption. Burial. Crowning after restoration

Exhibition