The Masterpieces from World Museums in the Hermitage series
Three Paintings from the State Hermitage, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York) and the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna)

On 18 June, an exhibition of three masterpieces coming from three different museums (State Hermitage, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York) and Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna)) was opened at the Concert Hall of the Winter Palace (room 190).
This is the first show organized in accordance with the Long-term Collaboration Agreement signed recently by the three museums.
The exhibition in the ''Madonna and Knights'' cycle presents Van Dyck's Madonna of the Partridges (State Hermitage) and The Vision of the Blessed Hermann Joseph (Kunsthistorisches Museum) and Oskar Kokoschka's Knight Errant (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum).
Both of Van Dyck's paintings were executed for the Confraternity of Bachelors, a congregation of laymen in Antwerp patronized by the Jesuits. The pictures reveal special devotion to the Virgin Mary to whom the fraternity was dedicated.
Oskar Kokoschka's Knight Errant (the title was given by the artist himself) shows a lonely lost man, clad in the armor, who lies prostrate on the ground.
On the same day two other exhibitions of masterpieces organized by the three cooperating museums were opened in New York and Vienna. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York) mounted a show of Rembrandt's Portrait of Baertje Martens (1640) from the State Hermitage, Diego Velazquez' Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Pink Gown (1654) from the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna) and Edouard Manet's Before the Mirror (1876) from the Solomon R. Guggenheim collection (New York). The other exhibit opened in the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna) includes Max Ernst's Attirement of the Bride (1940) from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), The Birth of St John the Baptist by Tintoretto (1554–55) from the State Hermitage and Esther and Ahasuerus (1585/88) by Paolo Veronese and his workshop from the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna).

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Exhibition's curator Natalia Gritsay and Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovsky at the opening of the exhibition

At the exhibition