Great Hermitage

The new building was considerably larger in size than the building of the Small Hermitage , after which it was erected, and therefore the name of the Great Hermitage arose. In the 19th century, after the construction of L. Klenze, the New Hermitage, the building also began to be referred to as the Old Hermitage , which is chronologically incorrect: the Hermitage Theater , which is part of the complex, is even younger.

Y. Velten. Draft 2 floor plan, 1777

In 1770 a decree was issued on the construction of a building in line with the Hermitage . Construction under the direction of Yu. M. Felten began in February 1771 and was carried out in several stages, since it was necessary to disassemble the abandoned M. Olsufyev and R. M. Koshelev houses located on the site.

Design and construction of Raphael loggias located along the Winter Canal began in 1783 . The subsequent restructuring was conducted by architects L. Charlemagne the 2nd , O. Montferrand .

By decision of Emperor Nicholas I in the middle of the XIX century, the entire Parade Suite was given under the collection. The arrangement of new interiors - the Seventh spare half - was carried out under the leadership of A. I. Shtakenshneider . The parade and court suite was set up for Nikolai Aleksandrovich's heir , however, due to his imminent death, he was not used for his intended purpose. The premises began to serve as spare rooms for foreign guests arriving at the royal court. So, in 1866, the Prince of Wales stayed here. Later, the heads of eastern states mostly stayed here - the Persian Shah , the Emir of Bukhara , the Khan of Khiva ^[1] .

Lined up with the facades of the Winter Palace and the Small Hermitage , the facade of the Great Hermitage is more concise and strict. The architect was able to harmoniously enter the new building into a number of already existing ones, emphasizing the representativeness of the North Pavilion and the plastic expressiveness of the main structure of the ensemble - the Winter Palace. Rooms and halls are placed in two longitudinal suites - towards the embankment and to the side of the courtyard. In 1805–1807, under the direction of J. Quarenghi , a new layout of the Grand Parade suite of the Great Hermitage was created, the architectural decoration of which in 1851 was altered by A. I. Shtakenshneider . Gilding , a color stone, valuable breeds of a tree, painting and a stucco decor of the crushed drawing are widely applied in interiors. The windows with preserved legger colored glass and the doors with unique decoration using the “boules” technique attract attention.

The first floor of the building is occupied by administrative premises, the Directorate of the State Hermitage . From 1828 to 1885, these premises were occupied by the State Council , and from 1885 - the Tsarskoye Selo arsenal .

Halls of Italian painting of the 13th — 18th centuries

In the halls of the second floor (the former living rooms of the Outhouse suite and the rooms of the Parade suite along the Neva ) are the works of Italian Renaissance masters: Leonardo da Vinci , Francesco Melzi , Giorgione , Titian , Correggio , Fra Angelico , Tintoretto , Paolo Veronese .

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  Court suite
  Titian's Hall

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  Titian
  St. Sebastian

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  Leonardo da Vinci
  Madonna Litta

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  Giorgione
  Judith

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  Julio Romano
  Love scene

Dining

Modern room number 215. In 1917, the workplace of Alexander Blok , who worked as a stenographer as part of the Emergency Investigation Commission, was located in this room. In the permanent exhibition there is a picture of the work of Correggio .

Double Room

Modern room number 214 - Leonardo Hall . The largest hall of the apartments, which occupies the volume of the second and third floors. The interior is created in the spirit of the Big Louis XIV style. The columns are made of dark gray with veins of Italian marble, porphyry , tape Kushkuldinskaya jasper. Particular attention is drawn to the doors with the decoration in the "boules" .

Rafael Loggias

Erected in the period from 1783 to 1792 by Giacomo Quarenghi, the gallery with copies of the Raphael frescoes repeats (with some digressions) the famous building of the Papal Palace in the Vatican . The architect placed the loggias in a specially erected building along the Winter Groove, which adjoined at right angles to the building of the Old Hermitage. Before leaving Italy for Russia, the architect measured the Vatican Gallery. Construction work was carried out under the supervision of stone masters J. Lukini . During the construction process, a discrepancy was found between the size of the new gallery and the size of the canvas from painting arrived in Italy , which led to the removal of J. Lukini from the work.

Even before the construction of this building began, by order of Catherine II, a group of artists led by H. Unterberger in 1778 began to copy the frescoes of Raphael and his school in the gallery of the papal palace. Copies were made on canvas, which were rolled up in Petersburg. Here before the installation of paintings, the painting was put in order by the artist J. Metterlater. When the New Hermitage was being constructed, the building with the Loggias also underwent a complete restructuring, the canvases were temporarily removed and re-installed at the end of the works.

When evacuating in 1941, in connection with the fear for the safety of painting, it was decided not to remove the canvases. Special shields tightly closed loggia windows. Precautionary measures completely justified themselves - during the Great Patriotic War the premises did not receive any damage.

The architectural design of the loggias is simple. The gallery consists of a number of compartments (loggias), formed by semicircular arches, which are located at equal distances from each other and create a clear and calm rhythm. The openings along the outer wall are glazed (they were open in the Vatican), windows arranged by mirrors were arranged in the opposite wall (in the Vatican they illuminate the adjacent room). The entire surface of the walls and arches, excluding the panel below the windows, is covered with intricate paintings. Nowhere without repeating, in a strict and clear rhythm, merging into a single composition, curls of acanthus and flowers run, images of fantastic animals playing cupids, human faces and figures turning into foliate ornament are woven into them. Such are the famous " grotesque ", created by Raphael under the influence of ancient paintings.

Theatrical Staircase

Located in the eastern rizalite of the Great Hermitage, the staircase was rebuilt in 1847 by architect Nikolai Efimov and serves as a passage from the Palace Embankment to the Hermitage Theater , the Raphael Loggia and connects all three floors of the Great Hermitage.

Soviet Ladder

Since 1828, the first floor of the Great Hermitage was occupied by the State Council and the Committee of Ministers , for which a new entrance and a new Soviet staircase (architect A. I. Shtakenshneider ) were built in the western part of the building. The staircase is richly decorated with natural and artificial marble. The lobby is decorated with four monolithic columns of red Shoksha porphyry . On the ceiling is the picturesque ceiling of the French artist Doyen, Gabriel-Francois , who was previously here, in the former Oel Hall of Felten. The Soviet staircase, also located next to the Pavilion Hall of the Small Hermitage , is one of the best works by Stackenschneider .

• Winter Palace
• Small Hermitage
• New Hermitage
• Hermitage Theater
• Reserve House of the Winter Palace
• Hermitage garage

• Glinka V.M. et al. Hermitage. History of construction and architecture of buildings / Under total. ed. B. B. Piotrovsky. - L .: Stroyizdat , Len. Otdel, 1989. - p. 349. - 560 p. - ISBN 5-274-00375-3 .

•   There are media files on Wikimedia Commons on the Great Hermitage.
• Historical background on the Hermitage website