The "Picture Gallery"
Constantine Ukhtomsky
1858
Watercolour
Ancient Colonization of the Northern Black Sea Region
Hall 119
Photo 2022
The Gallery of the Fine Arts was created in the long gallery situated below the Raphael Loggias. Here 111 paintings of the Italian school that had been deemed second-rate were displayed. These "also-rans" included such objects of future admiration as Titian's St Sebastian, Luca Giordano's Judgement of Paris and Tiepolo's Cleopatra's Feast. Bookcases containing works on art are placed along the windows of the gallery. For the most part they are books from the collection of Marchese Bernardo Galiani, a member of the Neapolitan Academy and well-known translator of the treatise by the Roman architect Vitruvius (1st century B.C.) This relatively small (some 1,000 volumes), but splendidly compiled library on the fine arts was acquired by Empress Catherine II in 1776.