Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin. The State Pushkin Museum, Prechistenka: description, history, interesting facts and reviews Why is the Pushkin Museum called Pushkin Museum

State Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin or, as it is more commonly called, the Pushkin Museum is one of the most significant museums in Moscow, which has gathered within its walls a large collection of works of foreign art from the ancient world to the present day.

How to get there

By public transport: m. Kropotkinskaya, then 2 minutes on foot

Address: Volkhonka street, 12

Opening hours

Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday - from 11-00 to 20-00 (ticket office until 19-00)
Thursday, Friday - from 11-00 to 21-00 (ticket office until 20-00)

Monday is a day off.

Ticket prices in 2020

Adults - 400 rubles
Preferential categories - 200 rubles
Children under 18 and some other categories of citizens - free of charge

There are benefits and free admission for certain categories of citizens.

Tickets can be bought at the box office and online on the official website

History of the Museum

Professor of Moscow University Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev became the inspirer and the first director. The initial collection was formed from copies of ancient sculptures and mosaics of the University Cabinet of Fine Arts and genuine antiquities, bought from the famous Egyptologist V.S. Golenishchev.

Later, the halls were replenished with paintings transferred from other museums and works of art from private collections donated or confiscated after the revolution. Today, the collection of the Pushkin Museum contains more than 670,000 exhibits, of which only 1.5% are available for inspection.

Under the jurisdiction of the Pushkin Museum im. Pushkin Museum is a whole museum town located in the historical center of Moscow near the Kropotkinskaya metro station. It includes several buildings, including:

Main building
Gallery of European and American Art of the 19th-20th Centuries.
Department of private collections
Museum-apartment of Svyatoslav Richter
Center for aesthetic education "Museion"
Educational Art Museum. I.V. Tsvetaeva
House of graphics

What to see in the Main Building

The main building is an architectural monument with a powerful colonnade and a glass roof, built 100 years ago specifically for the museum.

The exposition here is located on two floors. The first contains authentic rarities of Ancient Egypt, ancient times, the golden treasures of Ancient Troy from the excavations of the archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, paintings by European masters of the 8th-18th centuries, there is the Greek and Italian courtyards - large spaces with sculptures-casts. On the second floor, many rooms are given over to copies of art objects from Ancient Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In addition, original paintings by European artists are exhibited here.

The Egyptian Hall is one of the world's best collections of authentic items from the time of Ancient Egypt: mummies, sarcophagi, masks, figurines, jewelry and vessels.

Wooden sarcophagus of the nobleman Mahu, the holder of the plot of land of the temple of Amun:

Amenhotep and Rannai - priest and priestess of the god Amun:

Sarcophagus and mummy of Hor-Kha. In the foreground is the mummy of a cat:

The next room is dedicated to the art of the Ancient Near East.

Figurine of an adorant from Northern Mesopotamia. Adorant - a figurine made of stone or clay, which was placed in the temple so that she prayed for the person who placed it.

Halls of ancient art with a collection of Greek vases and amphorae, mosaics, sculptures and reliefs of Ancient Italy, Cyprus and Rome.

Antefix - ceramic tile with a mask of Medusa Gorgon:

Items from the excavations of Panticapaeum - the capital of the Chimerian Bosporus:

The theme of antiquity continues in the Greek courtyard - a large hall filled with casts of famous ancient Greek statues, reliefs and architectural fragments.

Sleeping Ariadne. The marble original is kept in the Vatican.

Another patio is Italian, with casts of masterpieces of the Renaissance.

The equestrian statue is a copy of the bronze monument to the commander-in-chief Bartolomeo Colleoni from Venice.

Michelangelo's famous David. The height of the sculpture is 5.5 meters.

One of the main gems of the Museum of Fine Arts. Pushkin - a collection of works by Rembrandt and artists of his school is located in room number 10.

Rembrandt "Portrait of an Old Woman" and "Portrait of an Elderly Woman".

Exposition of paintings by Flemish painters of the 17th century - Rubens, Jordaens, Van Dyck, Brueghel.

Anthony van Dyck "Portrait of Adrian Stevens". Flemish master of the early 17th century "Portrait of a Lady with a Fan".

"Skating" by Hendrik Averkamp from the 17th century Dutch Art Hall.

Also on the ground floor, the permanent exhibition presents the art of Byzantium, Italy of the 13th-16th centuries, Germany and the Netherlands of the 15th-16th centuries.

Let's go up to the second floor.

Hall, called "Olympic", with casts of classical ancient Greek sculptures.

A copy of the sculpture "Lamentation of Christ" from the Michelangelo Buonarotti room. “Great fame and glory,” according to his contemporary, was acquired by this work of the great master.

Italian sculpture of the 15th century. The decoration of the hall used decorative elements in the style of the Early Renaissance.

The magnificent Tombstone of the Cardinal of Portugal by Rosselino Antonio. The original is in Florence in the church of San Miniato al Monte.

European Art of the Middle Ages.

Cultural heritage of Ancient Italy and Ancient Rome in casts. The masterpieces of this hall are the Capitoline Wolf, the bust of Marcus Aurelius, the sculpture "Victoria".

Greek Art of Late Classics and Hellenism. The colossal group "Farnese bull" - the original is stored in the archaeological museum of Naples.

Winged Nike of Samothrace and Aphrodite of Cnidus by the famous sculptor Praxiteles.

Of course, it is difficult to show all the halls and works - there are a lot of them, you can spend more than one hour visiting the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts.

You can take pictures for free, but there are a few rules: you can’t use a tripod and flash, it’s forbidden to take pictures at temporary exhibitions.

On the days of especially significant exhibitions, when masterpieces are brought from the collections of the best museums in the world, long queues line up at the box office.

Since 1980 in the Museum. Pushkin, the annual music festival "December Evenings of Svyatoslav Richter" is held, during the year concerts are held in the halls.

Sightseeing and thematic tours are led around the permanent exhibition.

On May 31, 2017, the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts celebrated its 105th anniversary. On this occasion, Esquire has collected 10 facts about the museum.

1. The Gioconda was brought to the museum

In 1974, the legendary Gioconda by Leonardo Da Vinci was exhibited in Pushkinsky - and this, by the way, was the last time the painting left the Louvre to go abroad. Then 300 thousand people came to see the masterpiece. However, this is not the limit - the museum's attendance record was recorded seven years later.

2. Six hundred and fifty thousand people at one exhibition

So many visitors looked at the Pushkin Museum im. Pushkin exhibition "Paris - Moscow. 1900 - 1930", organized in 1981. The exhibition included original works by Malevich and Kandinsky, Picasso and Matisse - it is not surprising that it attracted such attention.

3. Museum collections were evacuated for three years

From 1941 to 1944, Pushkinsky's funds were taken to Novosibirsk and Solikamsk so that they would not suffer from the bombing. But this fate, alas, could not be avoided by the building itself - during the air raids, it lost part of the roof. In some places, potholes from fragments of German bombs have survived to this day - for example, in the upper part of the western facade of the museum, from the side of Maly Znamensky Lane.

Schoolchildren in the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin, early 1950s

4. For some time, Pushkinsky served as a permanent exhibition of gifts to Stalin

In 1949, the museum launched "an exhibition of gifts to Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin from the peoples of the USSR and foreign countries." The exposition was dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the leader, occupied several halls at once (the number of gifts went to tens of thousands) and was, in fact, permanent: it lasted until Stalin's death in 1953.

5. Over a million people annually

Pass through the numerous halls of Pushkin.

6. Before the revolution, only sculptures were exhibited here

Basically - plaster copies of antique statues and mosaics. The museum was created on the basis of the Cabinet of Fine Arts and Antiquities of Moscow University, its first director was the historian, archaeologist and art critic Ivan Tsvetaev. He personally ordered casts of ancient figures in foreign workshops. The only originals presented were exhibits from the impressive collection of Egyptologist Vladimir Golenishchev. It numbered more than 6,000 items brought by scientists personally from excavations in Egypt.

The paintings in the museum appeared only after the revolution, when they were confiscated from private collections and nationalized. Also, the museum's funds were replenished after the Great Patriotic War - they included paintings from the Dresden Gallery and Western European museums.

7. Seven hundred thousand units of storage

So many art objects contain the funds of the museum. Only a few percent are permanently exhibited.

8. Preparation of an exhibition, as a rule, begins a few years before its opening.

In total, the museum hosts about 30 exhibitions a year. Especially large projects are held 3-4 times a year. The cost of their preparation rarely fits into 1 million euros.

9. The museum changed its name twice

Opened as the Museum of Fine Arts named after Emperor Alexander III at the Imperial Moscow University, it became the State Museum of Fine Arts in 1932. And five years later, in connection with the centenary of the death of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, it was named after the poet.

10. Emperor Nicholas II personally attended the grand opening of the museum

And there is even a video:

The management of the construction was entrusted to the architect R.I. Klein, who developed the final design of the building. The Board of Moscow State University arranged for Klein a long business trip to European museums, Egypt and Greece. Klein was assisted in the construction by engineers Ivan Rerberg, the first deputy head of the project, and Vladimir Shukhov, the author of the unique translucent ceilings of the museum. Dozens of young architects, engineers and artists passed through the Klein school during the construction of the museum.

The building was completed in rough draft in 1904. Exhibits (gypsum casts and other copies) were ordered from the 1890s in foreign workshops according to forms taken directly from the originals; in some cases copies were made for the first time. On May 31 (June 13), 1912, the museum was opened to the public as the Museum of Fine Arts named after Emperor Alexander III at the Imperial Moscow University.

In 1923 the Museum was withdrawn from the subordination of the university. In 1932 it was renamed the State Museum of Fine Arts. In 1937 the Museum was named after Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. In 1991, the Museum was included in the State Register of Particularly Valuable Objects of Cultural Heritage of the Peoples of the Russian Federation.

The founder and first director of the Museum in 1911-1913 was Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev (1847-1913), professor at Moscow University. Irina Alexandrovna Antonova, Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, Academician of the Russian Academy of Education, Honored Art Worker of the Russian Federation, was the Museum Director from 1961 to July 2013, when she was appointed President of the Museum. At present, the director of the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin is Marina Devovna Loshak.

Collections of the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin are presented in the museum complex of buildings.

The Center for Aesthetic Education of Children and Youth "Museion" operates at the Museum (Kolymazhny lane, 6).

Composition of the Museum's collections

Currently, the total number of monuments stored in the Pushkin Museum is about 670,000 items. These are paintings, graphic works, sculptures, works of applied art, archaeological monuments, numismatic monuments, photographs, memorial items, items of the scientific auxiliary fund.

In 2011, the Museum's collection was replenished with a number of significant works of painting, graphics, numismatics, arts and crafts. The total number of entries is 3471 items. Of these, 787 items were bought, 550 items were accepted as donations, and 2134 items were accepted by decision of the Expert Fund Procurement Commission.

The picturesque collection of the Museum was replenished with 8 works; sculptural - one; collection of arts and crafts - 28 works; graphic collection - 118 works; collection of the Museum of Private Collections - 433 works, including paintings, drawings and photographs; the numismatic collection included 1790 items; Also, the collection of the Museum was replenished with a complex of archeological objects with a total of 1093 items.

Fund of the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin in 2011, the Museum received as a donation a rare monument of early Netherlandish painting (XVI century): a two-sided altar door with scenes of The Last Supper and the Mass of St. Gregory"; the work stylistically gravitates towards the production of the workshop of the Brussels painter Colaine de Cauter.

Valentina Andrianovna Tsirnyuk donated to the Museum a complex of works, among which the sculptural group "Artist and Model" by the Italian master Emilio Fiaschi (1858-1941) should be highlighted. This work is typical of the salon art of the second half of the 19th century.

The collection of decorative arts was also supplemented by a decorative Etruscan-shaped porcelain vase with an archery scene in the Green Dog park near Brussels, created in France in the 1830s. In terms of workmanship, form and painting, it is very rare for Russian museum and private collections. The vase was purchased by the Museum at the expense of the RF Ministry of Culture.

Another work of arts and crafts, which was included in the Museum's collection in 2011, is a bone relief with a female portrait - the work of the Austrian sculptor and bone carver Norbert Michael Schroedl (1816-1890). He is known mainly as the author of portrait images of members of the imperial family and prominent contemporaries, created using the technique of carving on ivory. According to a number of signs, it can be assumed that the image on this item is a portrait of the Empress of Austria and Queen Elizabeth of Hungary (1837-1898). The art of carved bone of the 19th century in the museum collection is represented only by individual samples, and therefore this item occupies an important place in it.

The graphic collection of the Museum includes 25 works of German graphics, including works by Lucas Cranach, Urs Graf, Hans Beham, Hans Burgkmair and other masters of the era of Albrecht Dürer, which are of undoubted value for the collection of the Pushkin Museum.

Of great value is the collection acquired by the Museum, consisting of 721 oriental coins, of which 33 are silver and 688 are bronze. The collection was collected in Turkmenistan and includes coins that circulated in the oasis of Merv from the 3rd century BC. until the end of the 19th century. It is unique because it includes rare coins of antiquity and the early Middle Ages, as well as samples of little-known issues of the Merv coinage. The collection was accepted for temporary storage in December 2000 and, after a long careful work of Russian specialists, finally entered the Museum's collection.

(federal)

State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin(abbreviated Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkin, Pushkin Museum) is one of the largest museums of foreign art in Russia. Its collection contains about 700 thousand works of different eras, starting from the period of ancient civilizations and ending with the beginning of the 21st century. An architectural monument of the late XIX - early XX century, the museum complex includes 27 buildings and structures. The main collections of the Museum are represented by paintings by French impressionists from the collections of Moscow merchants Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin and Ivan Abramovich Morozov, works of art of Ancient Egypt, as well as masterpieces of old masters.

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Story

The founder of the Museum is Professor of the Department of Theory and History of Art Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev, father of the poet and prose writer Marina Tsvetaeva.

At the end of 1896, he developed the conditions for a competition for the development of an architectural project for the Museum of Fine Arts at the Imperial Moscow University. The management of the construction was entrusted to the architect R.I. Klein, who developed the final design of the building, using the project of the self-taught architect P.S. Boytsov.

Klein's project was based on classical ancient temples on a high podium with an Ionic colonnade on the facade. Tsvetaev considered the building of the Museum as an educational object in the history of architecture. Elements of different historical eras were to be used in the decoration of the interiors, in accordance with the presented exhibits.

Most of the money for the construction of the Museum was donated by the Russian philanthropist Yuri Stepanovich Nechaev-Maltsov.

The museum was created on the basis of the Cabinet (Museum) of Fine Arts and Antiquities of Moscow University, which included antique vases, a numismatic collection, a number of casts from ancient sculptures and a small special library. With the advent of the head of the Cabinet I.V. Tsvetaev in 1889–1890, its systematic development began, especially the sculptural section and the library. Casts and other copies were ordered by Tsvetaev from foreign workshops on the basis of forms taken directly from the originals; in some cases they were made for the first time. In 1909–1911, the Museum acquired a unique collection of original items of ancient Egyptian art and culture (over 6,000) collected by the Russian orientalist Vladimir Semenovich Golenishchev.

The Museum of Fine Arts named after Emperor Alexander III was opened in a festive atmosphere on May 31 (June 13), 1912. Since November 1923, the Museum was withdrawn from the subordination of the university, in 1932 it was renamed again and received the name of the State Museum of Fine Arts. In 1937 he was named after A.S. Pushkin. During the Great Patriotic War, most of the museum funds were evacuated to Novosibirsk and Solikamsk. Since 1944, the restoration of the building of the Pushkin Museum, which was damaged by bombing during the war, and preparations for the deployment of the exposition began. Part of the glass of the metal-glass ceilings was broken by bombing, and for three years the museum stood in the open air. In the upper part of the western facade of the Museum there were potholes from fragments of German bombs. During this period, from February 1944 to 1949, the director of the museum was S. D. Merkurov. The post-war opening of the exposition took place on October 3, 1946.

In 1948, the Museum was given about 300 paintings and over 80 sculptures by Western European and American masters of the second half of the 19th - first third of the 20th century from the collections of I.A. Morozov and S.I. Schukin.

In the period of 1949-1953, the premises of the Museum were given over to the “Exhibition of Gifts by I.V. Stalin from the peoples of the USSR and foreign countries. After Stalin's death, the core activities of the Pushkin Museum were restored and expanded.

In 1985, at the initiative of the Soviet collector Ilya Samoylovich Zilbershtein, Doctor of Art History, and the director of the Museum, Irina Alexandrovna Antonova, the Department of Private Collections was created. In August 2005, the Gallery Art of Europe and America XIX-XX Centuries was opened. In 1996, the Educational Art Museum named after I.V. Tsvetaeva - Department of the Pushkin Museum, located in the building of the Russian State University for the Humanities (RGGU) and opened on May 30, 1997 (Chayanova St., 15). Its exposition consists of plaster casts of the former university museum, which were not included in the main exposition of the Pushkin Museum.

Since 1981, at the suggestion and with the active participation of Svyatoslav Teofilovich Richter (1915-1997), the Museum began to hold within its walls the international music festival "December Evenings of Svyatoslav Richter". Since 1999, according to the will of the musician, his apartment, turned into a memorial one, has been included in the museum (Moscow, Bolshaya Bronnaya St., 2/6, apt. 58). In 2006, the Museyon Center for Aesthetic Education of Children and Youth was opened at the Pushkin Museum (Kolymazhny per., 6, pp. 2, 3).

On May 31, 2012, the anniversary of the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin - 100 years. A series of commemorative medals and a postage stamp were issued for the anniversary. On the day of the anniversary, May 31, 2012, Channel One premiered a two-episode film by Leonid Parfyonov, The Eye of God, dedicated to the century-old history of the museum.

In the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin, the largest exhibitions of foreign art in Russia are held. In 1955, the Museum hosted the exhibition "Masterpieces of the Dresden Art Gallery", which was visited by 1.2 million people. In 1974, an exhibition of one portrait - "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci, which the visitor had only 9 seconds to view, gathered 311 thousand people. In 1982, within the framework of the exhibition “Moscow - Paris. 1900–1930” the Russian avant-garde was shown for the first time in the Museum. The exhibition was recognized as one of the most innovative and large-scale in the history of the 20th century, it was visited by 655,000 people.

From September to December 2016, the Museum hosted the exhibition “Raphael. The poetry of the image. Works from the Uffizi Gallery and other collections in Italy”, the number of visitors of which exceeded 200 thousand people.

Currently, the leadership of the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin, together with the Government of Moscow, is working on the creation of the Museum Town - an architectural complex of museum buildings and territories adjacent to them. After the completion of the reconstruction project, nine independent museums united in a museum space will operate on the territory of the Museum Town.

Collection

At present, the funds of the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin has about 700 thousand works of painting and sculpture, graphics, applied art, artistic photography, as well as monuments of archeology and numismatics. The Fund of the Manuscripts Department contains documents on the history of the Museum, the scientific and epistolary heritage of its founder Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev, other museum figures, prominent art historians and artists, archives of some museums whose collections have been replenished by the Pushkin Museum. The structure of the Museum includes scientific and restoration workshops and the Scientific Library.

Painting

The earliest monuments of the collection are works of Byzantine art - mosaics and icons. The early stage in the development of Western European painting is reflected in a relatively small but very bright collection of Italian primitives. The Hall of Early Italian Art was opened on October 10, 1924, but the first pictorial originals were donated to the then Emperor Alexander III Museum of Fine Arts by the Russian Consul in Trieste, Mikhail Sergeevich Shchekin, in 1910. Systematic receipts of paintings from Moscow and St. Petersburg collections, public and private, began after 1924. Thus, the works of Western European artists kept in the Rumyantsev Museum were transferred to the Museum's funds; as well as private collections of Sergei Mikhailovich Tretyakov, Princes Yusupovs, Counts Shuvalovs, Heinrich Afanasyevich Brocard, Dmitry Ivanovich Shchukin and other Russian collectors. Of particular importance were receipts from the State Hermitage. However, the composition of the Pushkin Museum's art gallery was finally determined only in 1948, when its collection was replenished with works by French artists of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries from the fund of the State Museum of New Western Art (GMNZI).

Graphic arts

The Department of Engraving and Drawing was formed in 1924, when the museum received the funds of the Engraving Cabinet of the Moscow Public and Rumyantsev Museum (abbreviated as the Rumyantsev Museum. The beginning of the collections of the Engraving Cabinet was the transfer of a valuable gift by Emperor Alexander II in 1861: the Moscow Public and Rumyantsev Museum then received more than 20 thousand prints from the Hermitage Subsequently, the cabinet included a number of significant private collections: Dmitry Alexandrovich Rovinsky (1824–1895) (Russian engraving), Nikolai Semyonovich Mosolov (1846–1914) (etchings by Rembrandt, drawings by Dutch masters of the 17th century), Sergei Nikolayevich Kitaev (1864–1927) (Japanese engraving) In Soviet times, the funds of the Department continued to be replenished through gifts, acquisitions, transfers from other museums (the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; the State Historical Museum, Moscow; the State Museum of New Western Art, Moscow As a result, the Department of Engraving and Drawing of the Pushkin Museum is a solid repository of works of graphic art, numbering about 400 thousand engravings, drawings, books with engravings, posters, works of applied graphics and bookplates created by masters of Western Europe, America, Russia, Eastern countries, for period from the 15th century to the present day. Among them are the works of outstanding artists - Durer, Rembrandt, Rubens, Renoir, Picasso, Matisse, Bryullov, Ivanov, Favorsky, Deineka, Utamaro, Hokusai, Hiroshige.

Sculpture

The collection of Western European sculpture includes more than 600 monuments. Over the years of the Museum's existence, a collection has been formed, which currently includes works of the 6th-21st centuries.

The first monuments donated to the Museum of Fine Arts were sculptures from the collections of M.S. Shchekin. In the first post-revolutionary years, sculptures from nationalized collections arrived here. In 1924, several picturesque halls were opened in the Museum, in which the first original works took their rightful place. The systematic acquisition of the fund of sculptural originals became possible after 1924, when the Museum left the subordination of Moscow University and began to exist already as an independent museum of Western European art in Moscow. A special Department of Sculpture was organized, which received works from the disbanded Rumyantsev Museum, the museum of the former Stroganov School, the Museum of Furniture, from a number of private collections (Dmitry Ivanovich Shchukin, Ilya Semyonovich Ostroukhov, Osip Emmanuilovich Braz). As a result of these additions, the collection was enriched with samples of polychrome wooden sculpture of the 15th-16th centuries, bronze sculptures of the 16th-17th centuries, works by French masters of the 18th century - Lemoine, Caffieri, Houdon, Clodion. After the closure of the Museum of New Western Art (GMNZI) in 1948, over 60 sculptures were received from there to the Pushkin Museum - works by Rodin, Maillol, Bourdelle, Zadkine, Archipenko and others. The section of modern sculpture was created mainly thanks to the gifts of the authors themselves.

Collection of decorative art works of the Department of Old Masters

The collection of works of decorative art of European countries includes about 2 thousand monuments, the earliest of which belong to the Middle Ages. Its composition is very diverse. It presents art products made of wood and bone, non-ferrous and precious metals, stone, fabrics, ceramics and glass. Of particular interest are the section of ceramics, which includes all its main varieties, as well as a collection of furniture.

Numismatics

Today, the funds of the Department of Numismatics of the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin is a collection of more than 200 thousand items and 3 thousand volumes of a special library.

Its formation began at the Imperial Moscow University. In 1888, this collection was divided and became the basis of the largest numismatic collections in Moscow - the Historical Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts named after Emperor Alexander III.

Since 1912, items of ancient and Western European numismatics from the university collection became part of the collection of the Sculpture Department of the Museum of Fine Arts and were kept mostly packed. By June 1925, separate cabinets with coins, medals and casts, scattered around the Museum, were grouped by the efforts of the curators and arranged as a Numismatic Cabinet, located in the choirs of the White Hall. Since 1945, the Numismatic Cabinet of the Museum has been separated into an independent department.

Currently, the collection of the Department of Numismatics of the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin includes a variety of items: coins, medals, orders, seals, paper money, gems, casts and others.

Archeology

The Museum of Fine Arts was conceived primarily as a museum of classical art - the monuments of Antiquity were the core and main component of its collections, the Department of Antiquity - one of the three scientific departments, its three pillars. Its first leaders were also specialists in the field of antiquity - not only the founder and director, Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev (1847–1913), but also the closest associates of the scientist, Vladimir Konstantinovich Malmberg (1860–1921) and Nikolai Arsenyevich Shcherbakov (1884–1933).

Currently, the Pushkin Museum's antique collection includes more than 37,000 exhibits, including numerous fragments of ancient monuments. Its artistic value is: about a hundred architectural fragments, over 300 pieces of ancient sculpture; about 2.5 thousand painted vases - Cypriot, ancient Greek and South Italian; about 2.3 thousand terracottas; over 1.3 thousand bronzes; about 1.2 thousand exhibits of applied art (mainly glass); over 100 carved stones; about 30 fragments of wall paintings; two mosaics.

Egypt

Most of the items presented in Hall No. 1 have been on display since 1912, the time the Museum was opened, and come from the collection of Vladimir Semyonovich Golenishchev (1856–1947), one of the world's best private collections of ancient Egyptian art, acquired by the Museum in 1909. This collection (about 8 thousand items) was the first and significant collection of originals of the Museum of Fine Arts.

In 1913, the Museum acquired a collection of monuments, including a slab depicting a scene of mourning for the deceased, known in literature as "The Mourners". Several truly precious gifts were made to the Museum by Yuri Stepanovich Nechaev-Maltsov (1834-1913) - excellent Fayum portraits and a golden diadem, a bronze statue of a walking Harpocrates. After the Great October Socialist Revolution, the Egyptian collection of the Museum was replenished with exhibits transferred from various museums and private collections. In addition, scientists whose activities were inextricably linked with the museum - Boris Vladimirovich Farmakovsky (1870-1928), Tamara Nikolaevna Borozdina-Kozmina (1883-1958), Alexander Vasilyevich Zhivago (1860-1940) - transferred to the Department of the Ancient East Egyptian monuments. The collection of the Museum was significantly enriched after the acquisition in 1940 from the artist and art critic Nikolai Adrianovich Prakhov (1873-1957) of a collection of 217 exhibits and owned by his father, the famous Russian art historian, philologist, archaeologist and art critic Adrian Viktorovich Prakhov (1846-1916) . A.V. Prakhov repeatedly visited Egypt, studying ancient monuments.

In the future, the number of works of art in the fund of the art of the Ancient East was replenished through donations, archaeological excavations, and periodic purchases.

ancient civilizations

The collection of the famous Russian orientalist, Egyptologist Vladimir Semyonovich Golenishchev laid the foundation for the museum collection of authentic monuments of the art of Western Asia. It contained over 300 cuneiform tablets and over 200 works of glyptics. The first tablets came to the Museum in 1911, a year before its official opening. The Central Asian part of the collection of the Department of the Ancient East is represented by clay figurines of the end of the 1st millennium BC acquired by the Museum in the mid-1990s. and the beginning of our era (fragments of female and male statuettes), originating from the territory of Margiana (modern South-Eastern Turkmenistan), testifying both to the originality of local art and the influence of ancient and more ancient oriental traditions.

Antiquity

Antique collection of the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin includes a significant number of authentic monuments - more than a thousand vessels, small plastic, sculptures. The first samples came from the Cabinet of Fine Arts and Antiquities at Moscow University. Beautiful monuments of ancient Greek painted ceramics were transferred in the 1920s from the Historical Museum, the Museum of Ceramics, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Rumyantsev Museum. A regular source of replenishment of the collection of antiquities are long-term archaeological expeditions of such ancient centers as the Crimean Panticapaeum and Scythian Naples, as well as Phanagoria on the Taman Peninsula .

Tsvetaeva collection of casts

The collection of casts and copies, which is typical for museums in Europe in the 19th century, is unique for the 21st century in terms of its safety and systematic nature, the composition of which was initially determined by the state and interests of art history at the end of the 19th century.

Today, the collection of casts is exhibited in the historical building, only in the third part of the halls reserved for them by Tsvetaev. But most of this collection remained available to the public - about 1 thousand exhibits are on display at the I.V. Tsvetaeva.

Of the 22 exhibition halls of the Museum, conceived and created by Ivan Vladimirovich, about half was dedicated to the plastic art of Antiquity. The list of monuments for reproduction was prepared with the participation of the famous antiquarian professor V.K. Malmberg. A thoughtful selection of casts from Crete-Mycenaean, ancient Greek and ancient Roman sculptures was supplemented by galvanic copies made in a technology that was completely new at that time, which made it possible to accurately reproduce jewelry, works of small plastic art and weapons art. Together, casts and galvanocopies created a vivid and complete picture of the development of ancient art.

The second part of the collection of casts and copies demonstrates the main moments in the development of Western European art from the time of early Christianity to the Renaissance. The works of Michelangelo are especially fully represented in the exposition. The sculpture is complemented by copies of architectural structures and details. Not only the exhibits, but also the halls, in the design of which the methods of historical reconstruction of architectural forms were used, were subject to a single educational task.

Equally consistently I.V. Tsvetaev also wanted to present the plastic art of the New Age, ending the museum collection with an exposition of casts from modern sculpture, where the central place would be given to the plastic art of Auguste Rodin. Unfortunately, the last part of his plan was not destined to come true due to lack of funds due to a fire that occurred during construction.

A number of casts and copies in the Museum's collection is the only reliable repetition of the monuments lost during the First and Second World Wars.

Name

1912-1917 - Museum of Fine Arts. Emperor Alexander III at Moscow University
1917-1923 - Museum of Fine Arts at Moscow University
1923-1932 - State Museum of Fine Arts
1932-1937 - State Museum of Fine Arts
1937 - present - State Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin

List of directors

Museum management

President - Irina Alexandrovna Antonova
Director – Marina Devovna Loshak
Deputy Director for accounting and storage of funds - Potapova Tatyana Vladimirovna
Deputy Director for Research – Bakanova Irina Viktorovna
Deputy Director for Economics - Salina Maria Viktorovna
Deputy Director for Capital Construction - Igor Avgustovich Pogrebinsky
Deputy Director for Information Technology - Vladimir Viktorovich Defined
Chief Engineer – Sergeev Vladimir Alekseevich

List of active buildings

Illustration	Name	Address	Description
	The main building of the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin	st. Volkhonka, 12	Construction - 1898-1912. Architect R.I. Klein. Engineer I.I. Rerberg
	Gallery art countries Europe and America XIX–XX centuries	st. Volkhonka, 14	Left wing of the former estate of the princes Golitsyns (mid-18th century). In 1890–1892, it was rebuilt by the architect V.P. Zagorsky, reconstructed for the needs of the museum in 1986-1988.
	Department Personal Collections	st. Volkhonka, 10	Monument of history and architecture of the XVIII-XIX centuries "Dwelling house with benches" (Shuvalova's house). Reconstructed for the needs of the museum in 1990-2005.
	Center aesthetic education "Museion"	Kolymazhny per., 6, building 2	Former manor of the end of the 18th - beginning of the 20th century. The building was restored and refurbished from the late 1990s to 2006.
	Educational Art Museum. I.V. Tsvetaeva	st. Chayanova, 15	Educational Art Museum. I.V. Tsvetaeva was founded in 1997. Located in the building of the Russian State University for the Humanities. There are 750 casts and copies in seven halls of the museum.
	Memorial apartment of Svyatoslav Richter	Moscow, st. Bolshaya Bronnaya, 2/6, apt. 58 (16th floor)	Donated to the museum in 1999.

museum town

Since 2014, the implementation of the development concept of the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin and turning it into a museum quarter in the area of Volkhonka Street, Kolymazhny, Bolshoi and Maly Znamensky lanes. The idea of creating the Museum Town on Volkhonka belongs to Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev, the founder and first director of the Museum of Fine Arts, historian, philologist and art critic. Expansion projects for the Museum began to appear immediately after its opening.

The State Pushkin Museum on Prechistenka presents works by the serf artist Vasily Sadovnikov

PHOTO: Anna Ivantsova, Evening Moscow

NAME

The Pushkin Museum is often confused with a literary museum, which is located a few steps away from it. And this is not surprising, because both cultural spaces bear the name of the famous Russian poet. The only difference is that one presents to the general public copies of famous sculptures and paintings by famous artists, and the other tells about the work of the poet himself and his life. Almost everyone who comes here has a question: “Where was Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin here, and why is the museum named after him?”

The museum did not always bear the name of the famous Russian poet. The current name was given to him only in 1937 - in memory of the death of Pushkin in 1837. The museum could be named after Ivan Tsvetaev, the initiator of its creation and the first director, or the Russian philanthropist Yuri Nechaev-Maltsov, who donated at least 80 percent of the necessary funds for the construction. But the authorities decided to pay tribute to the Russian poet and give the name to the 100th anniversary of his death.

By the way, initially, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts was called the Alexander III Museum of Fine Arts. Ivan Tsvetaev sincerely hoped that members of the imperial family would help finance the museum. But, alas, Nicholas II did not allocate as much funds as required.

IDEA

Historian and Muscovite Pavel Gnilorybov said that Moscow lacked an art museum that would collect works of art not only of domestic origin, but also of foreign origin, dating back to antiquity.

– At the end of the 19th century, a brilliant connoisseur of painting, Ivan Tsvetaev, set about creating “his own” antiquity in Moscow. People grew interested in foreign art. And then Troy, Pompeii were just being excavated, archaeological excavations were being carried out in the Middle East, and the dawn of Egyptology had also begun. And Moscow did not stand aside from these processes, - Gnilorybov noted.

According to him, Ivan Tsvetaev realized that buying original exhibits is an expensive pleasure, so he decided to acquire copies of famous works of art. He sent his "agents" almost all over Europe, who visited foreign museums and figured out how to get this or that exhibit in order to understand how to realize the idea and how much money it would take.

The area that Ivan Tsvetaev chose for the construction of the museum was not the most prestigious and, accordingly, not very expensive, the Muscovite notes. On the one hand, there was Lazy Vrazhek Street (or Lazy Torzhok), the current Lenivka. This place in Rus' was profitable for trade - the goods were offered directly from the carts. On the other hand, there was the royal Stables Yard.

ASSISTANTS

The well-known architect Roman Klein, who designed the Central Department Store, the Nekrasov mansion, the profitable prince of Prince Gagarin and other buildings in the capital, had a hand in the development of the building. Also an important role was played by engineer Vladimir Shukhov, thanks to whom the museum is famous for its translucent ceilings in the form of steel arches with ties and frame structures.

Russian philanthropist Yuri Nechaev-Maltsov once received an inheritance from his uncle, becoming the owner of several factories and plants in different provinces of Russia, the largest of which was the Gusev Crystal Factory in the Vladimir province. Nechaev-Maltsov donated millions of rubles so that Ivan Tsvetaev could fully realize his dream.

I.V. Tsvetaev and Yu.S. Nechaev-Maltsov on the steps of the Museum. 1912

PHOTO: Official website of the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin http://www.arts-museum.ru/

- There were times when Nechaev-Maltsev said to Tsvetaev: “Listen, you sucked everything out of me. There is no money left, but I will still increase production at my factories so that your idea will triumph,” says Pavel Gnilorybov.

The closest assistant in the case of Ivan Tsvetaev was also his wife Maria. According to the recollections of their daughter, the famous poetess Marina Tsvetaeva, she conducted all his extensive foreign correspondence, supporting her husband in everything.

“Speaking of her help to her father, I first of all speak of the unflagging of her spiritual participation, the miracle of the female involvement in entering everything and leaving everything as a winner. Helping the museum was, first of all, spiritually helping my father: to believe in him, to believe in him, and when necessary, for him, too,” wrote the poetess.

- Tsvetaev was an enthusiast on a completely pure non-monetary basis, and many compatriots perceived him as an urban holy fool, - says the Muscovite.

At the opening of the Museum on May 31 (June 13), 1912. In the center is the royal family, I.V. Tsvetaev and Yu.S. Nechaev-Maltsov. Newsreel frame

PHOTO: Official website of the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin http://www.arts-museum.ru/

WORK

The Pushkin Museum has suffered hardships more than once. In 1904, a fire broke out at the construction site, and many of the exhibits that were in the boxes burned down. And then the Great Patriotic War began, and most of the museum funds were evacuated to Novosibirsk and Solikamsk. Since 1944, the building of the Pushkin Museum, which suffered from bombing during the war, began to be restored and prepared for the deployment of the exposition. The bombing broke part of the glass of the metal-glass ceilings, and for three years the museum stood in the open air. In the upper part of the western facade, even the Museum was left with potholes from fragments of German bombs.

Of course, Ivan Tsvetaev did not live to see the war. But he could see how, after the fire in 1904, a large public campaign soon began, and many Russian travelers began to bring various exhibits from all over the world.

"Sistine Madonna" by Raphael at the exhibition "Masterpieces of the Dresden Art Gallery" in the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin. 1955

PHOTO: Official website of the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin http://www.arts-museum.ru/

- And he literally perked up, like a withering flower in the desert. For many years, it suffered setbacks, and then it was poured with water - and it blossomed again and things went smoothly, - Pavel Gnilorybov noted. - So that you understand how passionately and wholeheartedly he devoted himself to his work: he died forty days after the opening of the museum. This is even more than the project of his whole life. It is very correct and true that on the first floor of the museum there is a bust (albeit a modest one) of Ivan Tsvetaev.

MODERN DAYS

The museum, originally intended for students of art academies, gradually acquired a very important cultural significance - the custodian of the exhibits of the past. Today it is one of the most visited museums in Moscow, where completely different events are held: from musical evenings to unusual events. The Pushkin Museum does not stand still and is developing rapidly: new spaces are being developed, a museum town is being planned, the construction of which is actively underway at the moment.

In 2013, Irina Antonova, who held the post of director, became the president of the museum, giving way to Marina Loshak as director. One of the most important vectors for the development of the museum's activities was the proclamation of its openness and interactivity, the inclusion of the new without sacrificing traditions and scientific approach.

Rector of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts Semyon Mikhailovsky at the exhibition “Piranesi. Before and after. Italy - Russia. 18-21 centuries" in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts near cork models from the collection of Catherine II

Now the Pushkin Museum is forming a unique collection of media art, which will become a new tool for dialogue between the future and the present. The collection will include works by classics and contemporary artists of the latest generation in the field of media art and performance art. Specific projects and works will be presented that reflect on classical art with the help of the latest technologies.

BY THE WAY

In 2017, the exhibition of the contemporary Chinese artist Cai Guoqiang "October", held at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts from September 13 to November 12, became the winner of the VI Prize of the domestic newspaper "The Art Newspaper Russia". The main theme of his works was the centenary of the Great October Revolution. Cai Guoqiang created several works and an installation in front of the main building of the museum, the purpose of which was to show the role of one person in history, his connection with the fate of the country. The award was given for "the most explosive image of the revolution".