The State Hermitage Museum: Hermitage News

The Art Restoration and Storage Centre of the State Hermitage in Staraya Derevnya

The Staraya Derevnya Restoration and Storage Centre comprises five buildings: a storage facility, a building for exhibitions and public lectures, a restoration facility, an engineering structure and an administrative building. Its creation has been a high priority task within the programme of reconstructing and developing the State Hermitage. The project was designed jointly with the Giproteatr Institute and came about as a result of the need to move a number of storerooms and workshops out of the historical buildings of the museum, which had become overburdened with the extensive funds and where conditions of safekeeping do not meet modern requirements.

Construction of the Staraya Derevnya Restoration and Storage Centre, which has an overall surface area of 35,000 square metres, began in 1990. The general contractor for construction of the State Hermitage's Storage Facility in Staraya Derevnya was the second largest construction firm in Finland, Lemminkainen Oy (now called Lemcon Oy). The contract work was directed by Lemcon together with UNISTO closed corporation.

In 2000 work was done in the Engineering Block to install and regulate a local system of security alarms managed from a Sierra control panel. A new Business Phone 250 system from Ericsson was put into operation. Five base stations were purchased for a microcellular system which covers 80% of the premises taken over for regular operation. A local computer network was configured and brought on line. A fire alarm system in the Storage Facility building was prepared for formal acceptance.

In 2001 construction and installation work on the fifth floor of the Storage Facility building was fully completed. The fire alarm, warning, smoke removal, emergency and evacuation lighting systems were put in operation on the completed premises of the first, third, fourth and fifth floors. The systems of ventilation and air conditioning were partly adjusted for start-up. The electrical system of the building shifted to permanent supply.

In 2002 construction of the Storage Facility building and Administrative Block was completed. The Engineering Block was put into operation, along with the modular boiler room and refining installation. The main entrance and inner courtyard were improved. The firefighting passages from the southern and eastern sides of the complex were paved with sidewalk slabs. The grounds were encircled with a wire-mesh fence. The general improvement of the inner courtyard was completed turning it, according to plans, into an amphitheatre-garden.

Within the Storage Facility, installation work on a modern system of security alarms and monitoring visitor access was completed. The system feeds into the local computer network. The automatic gas-based firefighting system of the Storage Facility ensures delivery of extinguishing gas where needed in 38 rooms covering a total surface area of 7,835 square metres. The gas used in the system does not damage museum exhibits. The water-based fire extinguishing system consists of a pumping station with two high-capacity pumps, a pump to maintain pressure and a water reservoir(500 cubic metres). The new system of air conditioning and ventilation makes it possible to create the necessary microclimate in the storage area premises.

On 16 May 2003, the first portion of the Storage Facility building was put into operation. The State Hermitage viewed this event as its contribution to celebrating St Petersburg's 300th anniversary. The new museum Storage Facility functions according to the principle of "open storage". The tour route open to visitors extends for around one kilometre. The main storage building houses various collections from the Department of Western European Art, the Department of the History of Russian Culture, the Oriental Department, the Department of Archeology of Eastern Europe and Siberia, as well as the Laboratory for Scientific Restoration of Easel Paintings.

Fund of the Department of the History of Russian Culture

In 2004 special equipment - movable racks and glass-enclosed display cases - was installed in the rooms housing the fund of paintings from the Department of the History of Russian Culture, thus making it possible for visitors to acquaint themselves with the principles of placement and the peculiarities of the storage of paintings. This equipment allows for easy movement of the exhibit items when thematic exhibitions are being prepared.

Nearly the entire fund of paintings from the Department of the History of Russian Culture is being moved to the Storage Facility. The only exceptions are those works which are on permanent display in the main museum buildings. The fund includes around 3,500 canvases (works of Russian artists of the 17th to early 20th century, as well as works by foreign artists living in Russia in the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries).

In 2005 a large part of the works of Russian painting from the 19th and 20th centuries made the move. This and additions to the furniture funds made it possible to reconsider the open storage exhibition.

Within the Storage Facility, an exhibition of works of ancient Russian fresco painting has been created. Among the medieval frescoes on display there are paintings from Pskov and from the churches in Smolensk. In the same room there is a display of icons from the famous art centres of Old Russia - Mstiora and Kholui, including works of well-known icon-painters, as well as several examples of northern Russian painting.

In 2005 the largest part of the fund of Russian sculpture was brought to Staraya Derevnya. Works by such famous masters as Boris Orlovsky, Nikolai Pimenov, Piotr Klodt, Mark Antokolsky, Vasily Demuth-Malinovsky, Fiodor Tolstoi and Alexander Terebenev entered the open storage exhibition.

The exhibition displays around 1,200 pieces of Russian furniture dating from the first quarter of the 18th to the early 20th century (the collection numbers about 2,500 storage units).

The Hall of Carriages

The Hall of Carriages was created specially to house the Hermitage's remarkable collection of carriages. Here we find such interesting exhibits as the vis-a-vis carriage (circa 1761, Paris), which Ivan Betskoi presented to Catherine the Great, and the state carriage (master Ivan Yakovlev) made for the entrance of ladies-in-waiting to Moscow on the occasion of the coronation of Alexander II in 1856.

Fund of the Department of the History of Western European Applied Art

The open storage exhibition displays around 1,000 pieces of European furniture dating from the 16th to19th century (the collection has around 3,000 works by master furniture-makers of Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Flanders and England).

The "Theatre of Tapestries"

The planning and creation of the so-called "Theatre of Tapestries" was a significant achievement. This makes it possible to exhibit eight tapestries simultaneously in a moving display. Moreover there is possibility of providing a musical accompaniment to the showing. The "Theatre" consists of huge vertically positioned metal frames on wheels which are moved along rails by an electrical drive. The entire system is directed by the tour guide using a portable remote control device. The "Theatre of Tapestries" enjoys invariable success with the public. Among the exhibits are three huge tapestries from the Story of Meleager series created in Flanders in the late 17th century on the basis of cartoons by the famous French painter Charles Lebrun.

Fund of the Department of the History of Western European Fine Arts

In December 2005 work was completed on the storage area of Western European sculpture, which now became part of the visitors' open storage itinerary at the Staraya Derevnya Restoration and Storage Centre.

There are now 219 exhibits in the storage area which were taken from the funds of the State Hermitage as well as those which were on display. They are arranged by schools and in chronological order: from the art of Classical Antiquity (represented by copies made in the 17th and 18th centuries) and original works by masters of the Renaissance to modern sculpture.

The works differ widely in terms of provenance. Some of them go back to the time when the Hermitage's collection of sculpture was first formed in the age of Catherine the Great: the Dionysus and the Centaur relief; two statues by an unknown Italian master of the mid-18th century which decorated the Hanging Garden - the Allegory of Painting and the Allegory of Sculpture. Many works entered the collection in the19th century. Some were purchased, while others were commissioned (including works that were in the former collections of grand dukes and private owners). The most recent acquisitions came via the Hermitage's New Acquisitions Department or were donated by the sculptors.

The exhibits also vary according to level of execution. There are signed works: Diana with a Dog by Luigi Bienaimé, A Spring by Wolf von Hoyer, The Throwing of the Vestal Virgin from the Tarpeian Cliff by Karl Kloss, the Portrait of Wilhelm II by Heinz Hoffmeister; numerous portraits done by well-known masters from various schools at the behest of members of the Imperial family and once displayed in the Winter Palace; decorative statues, candelabra and fountains that adorned the palace, as well as copies and replicas by unknown masters, late castings and plaster copies of well-known sculptures. The materials used to create the sculptures include clay (terracotta, majolica), wood, stone (marble, limestone), metal (bronze, iron, lead) and plaster. They provide a broad representation of the techniques and technologies of sculpture as an art form.

The distinguishing features of the new storage area are the well-planned and organized use of space as well as the equipment, which was specially designed (Alexander Stepura, chief designer of the Restoration and Storage Centre) and executed on a high level by the masters of Museum Technologies Ltd. Works of sculpture are clustered on podiums and on various pedestals in that part of the storage area through which tour groups can walk. In the storage area proper, there are racks for sculptures and the exhibits are well seen through transparent glass doors. The designers came up with a very good solution for small-scale sculpture: a case/rack that separates the service part of the premises and has a rear wall made of matte glass that sets off statuettes and small busts to especially good effect.

In connection with the creation of the new Storage Facility, considerable work was done to restore many art works. Practically all the sculptures that are now in the open part of the Storage Facility passed through the hands of restorers. The new open Storage Facility has resulted from the joint work of a designer, restorers and curators of sculpture from the Department of Western European Art. It allows visitors to get a rather comprehensive idea of the development of Western European sculpture.

Fund of the Department of the Ancient World

The open storage of the Department of the Ancient World displays exhibits which formerly were not shown in the museum rooms but which provide a broad idea of antique sculpture in marble. Here one can see not only genuine works by Greek masters from the first centuries B.C., but also the works of Roman copyists and even of 18th-century Italian restorers.

The Greek section includes monuments of the Hellenistic period: gravestones in the form of female half-figures, small marble statuettes which were dedicated to temples of various gods (Cybele, Aphrodite, Asclepius). Thus, dedicatory gifts to the shrine of the god of health Asclepius could take the form of figurines of children playing with birds. Some time ago they were part of the permanent exhibition in the Hermitage. By thoroughly studying the iconography of antique personages and analysing the devices of working marble and the technique of creating sculptures, researchers came to a conclusion that these depictions of children and a number of other works of art in the Hermitage collection could be relegated to the category of the so-called pseudo-antiques.

The portraits of well-known personalities of Ancient Rome - Cicero, Sulla and Marius - also turned out to be the works by 18th-century Italian masters. There are separate sections of the open storage exhibition of the Department of the Ancient World for epigraphic monuments, as well as for fragments of sculptural decoration of architectural structures of the Roman and early Byzantine periods.

Fund of the Oriental Department

The storage room of the Oriental Department has a special structure with changeable configuration that makes it possible for visitors to admire both the outside and inside of the field tent presented by the Turkish Sultan Selim III to Catherine the Great in 1793. The tent is made of cashmere fabric and is richly decorated with needlework and embroidery in gold thread. Previously it could not be displayed in the rooms of the State Hermitage because of its great size (510 х 103 х 250 cm).

A model of the Repository
Larger view