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Restoration of the Gallery of Ancient Painting On 7 December 2005, the Gallery of Ancient Painting was reopened to the public following restoration work. This has one of the most beautiful interiors in the New Hermitage. The design for interior decoration of the Gallery was prepared in the mid-1840s by the Bavarian architect Leo von Klenze, who envisioned it as an anteroom to the Picture Gallery in the Imperial Hermitage. Pictures mounted on the walls, lunettes and six cupolas are painted on subjects taken from literary sources and myths and remind us of the traditions of antique art, its history and works about which we know only from the descriptions by ancient authors. The sketches for all the panels were made by the artist Georg Hiltensperger and his pupils in Munich. These were then approved by Nicholas I and executed in imitation of the antique encaustic technique using wax pigments on metal. Nowadays the sketches are preserved in the State Hermitage's Section of Drawings. The paintings mounted on the walls were done on brass in Hiltensperger's workshop in Munich, while the six paintings in the cupolas (on unique iron from the famous Demidov works) were executed by the artist Cosroe Dusi together with his pupils in the Imperial Academy of Arts, St Petersburg. Medallions with bas-relief portraits of renowned masters of European art, including Leo von Klenze himself, were moulded under the direction of Joseph German. All ornamental paintings on the motifs of decorative painting in Pompei and Ancient Rome were created under the guidance of Johann Drollinger and David Iensenn on plaster of special composition in which a significant amount of finely ground coloured marble was used. Following repair and restoration work which lasted almost two years, the Gallery of Ancient Painting now appears before the Hermitage guests in its original state. In the restoration process, the surface of the roof over the room and metal supports were replaced; the three external skylights were glazed; in the inside skylights, made from the Demidov iron and installed in 1895-96 to replace the wooden ones, the glass was also replaced; the causes and consequences of leaks were eliminated. The restorers strengthened the painting and removed all additions from various periods. Separate fragments of ornamental paintings were reproduced in keeping with the original drawing, using a size-tempera technique. Bright colouring was restored to the paintings. A new system of illumination was installed along the cornice, making it possible to regulate the level of illumination of the room. The windows were repaired and restored. The coloured artificial marble was cleaned, tinted and in some places restored. Wooden doors made in the second half of the 19th century at Miller's factory in St Petersburg and veneered with valuable varieties of wood were restored, as were their fittings. The parquet floors with complicated designs made from rare varieties of wood were restored, their panels strengthened and levelled using varieties of wood matching the original flooring (plane-tree, satinwood). The work was carried out by restorers from the Special Scientific Restoration Workshops of the State Hermitage under the guidance of the Chief Architect of the State Hermitage, Valery Lukin, Deputy Chief Architect Vladimir Yefimov and senior researcher of the Department of the History and Restoration of Architectural Monuments Marina Ilyina. All the restoration work was accompanied by technical and technological investigations carried out by the staff of the Department of Scientific and Technical Examination (directed by Alexander Kosolapov). Senior researcher of the Department of Western European Art, Militsa Korshunova, provided a great deal of help. |
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Copyright © 2006 State
Hermitage Museum |
