THE STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM ANNUAL REPORT n 2012 CONTENTS General Editor 4 Year of Village and Garden Mikhail Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage Museum, 6 State Hermitage Museum. General Information Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 16 Awards Full Member of the Russian Academy of Arts, Professor of St. Petersburg State University, 20 Composition of the Hermitage Collection as of 1 January 2013 Doctor of History 40 Exhibitions 86 Restoration and Conservation 121 Publications EDITORIAL BOARD: 135 Electronic Editions and Video Films Mikhail Piotrovsky, 136 Conferences General Director of the State Hermitage Museum 141 Dissertations Georgy Vilinbakhov, 142 Archaeological Expeditions Deputy Director for Research 158 Major Construction and Restoration of the Buildings Svetlana Adaksina, Deputy Director, Chief Curator 170 Structure of Visits to the State Hermitage in 2012 Marina Antipova, 171 Educational Events Deputy Director for Finance and Planning 180 Special Development Programmes Alexey Bogdanov, Deputy Director for Maintenance 188 International Advisory Board of the State Hermitage Museum Vladimir Matveyev, 190 Guests of the Hermitage Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Development 194 Hermitage Friends Organisations Mikhail Novikov, 204 Hermitage Friends’ Club Deputy Director for Construction 206 Financial Statements of the State Hermitage Museum Mariam Dandamayeva, Academic Secretary 208 Principal Patrons and Sponsors of the State Hermitage Museum in 2012 Yelena Zvyagintseva, 210 Staff Members of the State Hermitage Museum Head of the Publishing Department 215 Email Addresses of the State Hermitage Museum Larisa Korabelnikova, Head of the Press Service EXECUTIVE GROUP: Tatiana Baranova, Vera Chudinova, Mariam Dandamayeva, Yekaterina Danilina, Victor Faibisovich, Yevgenia Glinka, Larisa Korabelnikova, Yevgenia Kulikova, Regina Mamedova, Svetlana Philippova, Yelena Zvyagintseva ISBN 978-5-93572-499-3 © The State Hermitage Museum, 2013 YEAR OF VILLAGE AND GARDEN festival marking the “expulsion of the enemy beyond the borders of the Motherland”. There were both a parade and a litany. There was also an exhibition of toy soldiers which everyone found sweet. But another, more modern and edgy version of “soldiers”, the harsh anti-Nazi installation by the Chapman Brothers was not welcomed in the same way by some visitors, who did not want to understand and accept the meta- phor of a “joke after Auschwitz”. There was even an attempt to stage a persecution of the museum, which coincided with attacks on other cultural institutions and made St. Petersburg, for a while, the field of a fierce battle between complex and simplistic understanding of art and its rights. The Hermitage restorers made both the scholars and the visitors proud by their work on Degas’ Place de la Concorde and a Hugo van der Goes triptych. The most popular architectural exhibi- tion of the year was the Santiago Calatrava display, and an extensive exhibit entitled “In Written Words Alone…” was organised as a tribute to the great scholar and collector Nikolay Likhachev. The ancient world of the Persian Gulf entered the museum’s rooms with the Bahrain exhibition When we started the restoration of the Hanging Garden, the heart of the Hermitage, its two rows called “Tylos”, while contemporary art found a permanent space for itself in the Prigov Room, part of trees had to be re-planted in Staraya Derevnya, next to the first building of the Storage and Res- of the General Staff Building. Following scholars’ requests, the Hermitage • Kazan Centre housed toration Centre. We were very proud of the success of this piece of sound environmental judgment. the widely acclaimed exhibition on nomadic tribes. Still more popular was the exhibition tracing This year saw the end of the restoration of the Hanging Garden and the construction of the second the sources of Impressionism at the Hermitage • Amsterdam Centre. We told the story of Catherine (storage) building of the Centre. the Great in Edinburgh, and the story of Alexander the Great in Sydney. In Yekaterinburg, there was The work in the Hanging Garden was hampered by insulation challenges, and many visitors have an exquisite display of engravings by Piranesi. already forgotten that the garden had nearly always been out of bounds in the past. Many of them Each step the museum takes, all its projects, small and large, are part of the multi-faceted pro- seem to think that it used to be open and has now been closed down. People find it hard to accept gramme of gifts the Hermitage is giving to its public ahead its 250th anniversary. This programme the restrictions imposed by cultural rights and the need to protect historic monuments. We have the now has its own special logo, which reminds us, quite appropriately, of Empress Catherine the Great. Hermitage variety of tulips blooming in the garden and we have kept our beloved lilac. We have tried to ensure that the garden does not look too “reconstructed” and retains the spirit of several histori- cal periods. Another novelty that is taking some time to be accepted is that our Storage Centre is open to the public. This is not as interesting as grumbling at wicked museum workers who are hiding their great treasures from the people. In fact, the Hermitage open storage facility has long become a universally acknowledged contribution to the world’s museum theory and practice. The seemingly “impossible” challenge of making the collections accessible without damaging them has been overcome. The stor- age facilities are not just accessible. They have their own style and showcasing aesthetics. They are already well known to the experts. The new high and spacious building has many public areas: auditoria, exhibition halls and study rooms. It will house the collections of banners, sarcophagi, sculptures; workshops for the restoration of textiles, carriages, furniture; the photograph storage and restoration facility. We are especially proud of our high-security jewellery section which has many levels of protection. All this space will be “saturated” with equipment and exhibits by 2014, the year we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Hermitage. Everything that is being done today is building up to the museum’s anniversary, including the cel- ebrations of the victory of 1812. The Hermitage has approached this topic in its own special style. We have the famous paintings by Peter Hess depicting the key battles of the Patriotic War. We had these paintings brought out to the Winter Palace rooms on the dates of the battles, to the accompani- ment of military ceremonial music. At the end of the year they all formed part of a grand exhibition which carried on into the following year, reminding us of the Battles of Klum and Leipzig and the Mikhail Piotrovsky, capture of Paris. The opening of the exhibition on 25 December saw the restoration of the traditional General Director of the State Hermitage Museum 4 5 STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM. GENERAL INFORMATION STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM. GENERAL INFORMATION FOUNDING OF THE MUSEUM General Staff Building (former Ministry of Foreign Affairs The foundation date of the museum is considered to be 1764, when Empress Catherine the Great and Ministry of Finance building). 1819–1829 acquired an impressive collection of works (225 paintings) from the Berlin merchant Architect, Carlo Rossi Johann Ernest Gotzkowsky. “Staraya Derevnya” Centre for Restoration, Conservation and Storage The museum celebrates the anniversary of its founding each year on 7 December, The beginning of construction – 1990 St. Catherine’s Day. STATUS OF THE HERMITAGE MUSEUM SPACE In a Decree by the President of the Russian Federation dated 18 December 1991 the State Hermitage Total area 224,970 sq. metres Museum was included into a list of the most valuable objects of national heritage. Exhibition area 66,842 sq. metres In a Decree by the President of the Russian Federation dated 12 June 1996 the State Hermitage Museum was placed under personal patronage of the President of the Russian Federation. In a Decree (No. 984) dated 29 November 2011 the new Statutes of the State Hermitage Museum, MAIN COLLECTIONS ENTERING THE MUSEUM SINCE ITS FOUNDATION as a federal government funded institution, were approved. According to the Statutes the Government 1764 – Johann Ernest Gotzkowsky collection of the Russian Federation is to act as the museum founder. 1769 – Count Heinrich von Bruhl collection 1772 – Baron Pierre Crozat collection OFFICIAL NAMES 1779 – Lord Walpole collection The State Hermitage Museum Federal Government Funded Cultural Institution; The State Hermitage 1781 – Count Baudouin collection Museum; The Hermitage 1787 – Cabinet of carved stones of Duke of Orleans In honour of the State Hermitage Museum, according to the Official Certificate of the International 1814 – Paintings from the Malmaison Palace of Josephine Beauharnais Astronomic Association and the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy of the Russian Academy 1861 – Marquis Gian Pietro Campana collection of Sciences dated 11 April 1997, a minor planet registered in the International Catalogue of Minor 1884 – Alexander Basilewsky collection Planets under No. 4758 was named Hermitage. 1885 – Collection of the Arsenal in Tsarskoye Selo (now the town of Pushkin) 1910 – Pyotr Semenov-Tyan-Shansky collection After 1918 the Hermitage also received the socialised collections of the Russian aristocratic LEGAL ADDRESS families Sheremetev, Stroganoff, Shuvalov, Yusupov, as well as the famous collections 34 Dvortsovaya