The Hermitage Collections

The definitive volumes celebrating the collections of the Hermitage Museum. For nearly 250 years the State Hermitage has been one of Europe’s most palatial museums. It encompasses more than three million works of art and artifacts displayed within a spectacular architectural ensemble, the heart of which is the famed Winter Palace. The two volumes of The Hermitage Collections capture the masterpieces and discuss the history that make this world-famous institution a cultural destination and a global treasure. Many of its rarely reproduced works are included in these two volumes, such as The Raphael Loggias (as copied from the Vatican), Michelangelo’s Crouching Boy, The Gonzaga Cameo, Leonardo da Vinci’s Madonna with a Flower (The Benois Madonna), and Titian’s St. Sebastian. The Hermitage collections were developed beginning in 1764 by Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia. Today, the Hermitage collections constitute one of the great art museums of the world."The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, which began as Catherine II's imperial collection in the Winter Palace, is on the bucket list of most art lovers. Whether you've been or never been, this collection is a must have.  Two voluptuous volumes cover 250 years of the history and treasures found in one of the world's most beautiful buildings." ~Post-Gazette.comOleg Yakovlevich Neverov is a chief researcher and curator at the State Hermitage, specializing in ancient glyptics.

Dmitry Pavlovich Alexinsky, a junior researcher at the State Hermitage, is an antiquity specialist.

Dr. Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky has been the director of the State Hermitage Museum since 1991.