On 3 July 2024, the Hermitage again held a scholarly conference devoted to the memory of Tamara Vladimirovna Rappe (1948–2017), a leading specialist on Western European applied art, keeper of the Hermitage’s collection of Western European furniture, and the founder and first head of the museum’s Department of Western European Applied Art.
At the opening of the conference, Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky said that the department is preserving the traditions established by Tamara Vladimirovna, with the conference being among the most important evidence for that. Applied art invariably arouses the interest of a broad public, and its study and display connects the museum and society. Tatiana Rappe was a striking figure as a scholar and an administrator, with an ability to resolve issues in research and public matters in a pleasant, cultured way.
This year the conference marked the 95th anniversary of the birth of Yulia Osvaldovna Kagan (1929–2022), who was for many years the keeper of the Hermitage Western European glyptics collection. Yulia Osvaldovna joined the museum in the 1960s and her whole life was bound up with the Hermitage. Her main research interests included English glyptic art and the history of the formation of Catherine II’s collection of cameos and intaglios.
Papers were presented at the conference by colleagues and pupils of Rappe and Kagan, members of staff of the Department of Western European Applied Art and other Hermitage departments. The focus was on topics connected with glyptics and Western European furniture, as well as other spheres of the applied and fine arts.
