New Hermitage

Since the beginning of the 18th century, collecting European works of outstanding masters of art has acquired national importance for European courts. Catherine II took an active part in this enterprise and spared no money to replenish her collection. It began with paintings by Dutch and Flemish masters purchased in Paris and various cities in Holland.

Already in 1764, Catherine initiated the construction of the Small Hermitage for her collection. But even before the construction of the Hermitage galleries was completed (1775), it became clear to her that this building would be too small for her ever-expanding collection. Therefore, in 1771, it was decided to begin construction of the Great Hermitage . Including the famous Raphael Loggias, this building was erected for many decades and was only completed under Alexander the First .

In 1835, Charlemagne conducted an inspection of the construction site and came to the conclusion that what was done was not subject to rehabilitation. Only in 1836 the conviction was formed that it was necessary to begin construction of a completely new building. In 1837, a fire caused enormous damage to the Winter Palace , which was nearby, and the need to start work in the entire palace complex became obvious to everyone.

In 1837, when visiting Munich, Emperor Nicholas I , came to the idea of ​​involving the already well-known German architect and builder of the Bavarian Athens, L. Klenze, in leading the upcoming work.

However, Klenze, who became acquainted with a huge city, whose Nevsky Prospect was 5 times longer than Munich's Ludwigstrasse , decided to create something magnificent. During the four months of his stay, he made sketches of a fundamentally new type of building designed to exhibit works of art called the New Hermitage. He designed a two-story building, which had a plan in the form of a quadrangle, with two courtyards and four front facades, not repeating in design. The northern facade, facing the Neva, was supposed to have two entrances decorated with porticoes supported by the Caryatids .

The eastern facade facing the Winter Canal was supposed to be glazed according to the idea of ​​Klenze and repeat the structure of Raphael's stanzas . The western facade was supposed to have a ground floor resembling a Glyptotek , and the top floor was a Pinakothek in Munich.

In general, the building was to repeat in detail the unrealized projects of the architect. They were the building of the Pantechion - Museum building for Athens (1834) and the building of the royal residence. Both of these projects reflected the intention of the architect who visited Athens to create a new type of architecture that contradicts, as he noted, the “dry and academic, monotonous structure of building groups”. He considered the combination of groups of architectural details to create pictorial groups "as the most important of the tasks that an architect could set for himself." For the first time in modern architecture, Klenze has a motive for a group of atlantes carrying transverse beams.

Although Nicholas I forbade the destruction of the Feltenovsky Old Hermitage (the so-called building of the Great Hermitage was now called), the construction began in 1842, three years after the departure of Klenze, under the supervision of V.P. Stasov and N.E. Efimov , who led the work after death Stasov in 1848. Architects faced the difficult task of creating working drawings of the building according to Klenze’s outline sketches. However, work by 1851 was possible to complete. A huge role in creating the appearance of the building is played by the Atlanteans made by A. I. Terebenev in 1846 according to the Klenze models, who inspired him when examining the ruins of the temple of Zeus in Agrigent .

On February 5 ( 17 ), 1852 , the Grand Opening of the New Hermitage was held for the public. On the ground floor, two halls of the latest sculpture were opened. The spacious rectangular hall with pale green walls with stucco medallions with profiles of Canova , Michelangelo , Torvaldsen , Rauch and Martos was intended for the work of Western European masters. The smaller hall, with the medallions of Klodt , Vitali , Pimenov , Kozlovsky , Demut-Malinovsky and Orlovsky, was intended for Russian sculpture, which, however, was not placed here - it was placed in a hall intended for one of the libraries. The selection of statues and groups was made personally by Emperor Nicholas I. In 1857, the works of Western European and Russian sculptors were combined in one room, and then transferred to other places: on the site of the 2nd floor of the Main Staircase, in the Gallery of the History of Ancient Painting and in the Winter Palace ^[2] .

• Big Kolyvan vase
• Portico of the New Hermitage
• Hermitage Knight's Hall

• Piotrovsky M. B. Hermitage. - M .: Slovo, 2003 .-- 616 p. : ill. - (Great museums of the world). - ISBN 5-85050-673-X .
• Sybille Rogait / Leo von Klenze / Die Neue Eremitage in St. Petersburg. in collection: St / Petersburg-Leningrad. Universitet Karlsruhe (TH) / Institut Für Baugeschichte Prof. Dr. Ing. Wulf Schimer. Wissenschaftliche Bearbeitung Dr.-Ing. Sergej G. Fedorov. Karlsruhe 2000

• Historical background on the Hermitage website