19 Facts About Hermitage Museum

Today, the Hermitage Museum encompasses many buildings on the Palace Embankment and its neighbourhoods.

In recent years, the Hermitage Museum has expanded to the General Staff Building on the Palace Square facing the Winter Palace, and the Menshikov Palace.

Rooms on the first floor of the Old Hermitage Museum were designed by Andrei Stakenschneider in revival styles in between 1851 and 1860, although the design survives only in some of them.

Knights' Hall, a large room in the eastern part of the New Hermitage Museum originally designed in the Greek revival style for the display of coins, now hosts a collection of Western European arms and armour from the 15th-17th centuries, part of the Hermitage Museum Arsenal collection.

The Hall of Twelve Columns, in the southeast corner of the New Hermitage Museum, is adorned with columns of grey Serdobol granite and was designed in the Greek revival style for the display of coins, is used for temporary exhibitions.

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Rooms and galleries along the southern facade and in the western wing of the New Hermitage Museum are now entirely devoted to Dutch Golden Age and Flemish Baroque painting of the 17th century, including the large collections of Van Dyck, Rubens and Rembrandt.

At the inaugural exhibit of the Hermitage Museum, opened by Charles, Prince of Wales in November 2000, there was an entire gallery devoted to representing and displaying Catherine's favorite items.

Today, all of the paintings but one by Titian in the Hermitage Museum came to St Petersburg from the Barbarigo collection.

Meanwhile, from 1851 to 1860, the interiors of the Old Hermitage Museum were redesigned by Andrei Stackensneider to accommodate the State Assembly, Cabinet of Ministers and state apartments.

In 1861, the Hermitage Museum purchased from the Papal government part of the Giampietro Campana collection, which consisted mostly classical antiquities.

The Hermitage Museum acquired Madonna Litta, which was then attributed to Leonardo, in 1865, and Raphael's Connestabile Madonna in 1870.

In 1928, the Soviet government ordered the Hermitage Museum to compile a list of valuable works of art for export.

From 1930 to 1934, over two thousand works of art from the Hermitage Museum collection were sold at auctions abroad or directly to foreign officials and businesspeople.

In 1981, the restored Menshikov Palace became a new branch of the Hermitage museum, displaying Russian culture of the early 18th century.

In December 2001, the Hermitage Museum was the setting for Russian Ark, a film by Russian director Aleksandr Sokurov, in which he elaboratively chronicles 300 years of the history of the building and the city in one uninterrupted, single-take shot, a first in world cinema.

In 2003, the Hermitage loaned 142 pieces to the University of Michigan Museum of Art for an exhibition titled The Romanovs Collect: European Art from the Hermitage.

Hermitage Museum announced in July 2006 that 221 minor items, including jewelry, Orthodox icons, silverware and richly enameled objects, had been stolen.

In recent years, the Hermitage Museum launched several dependencies abroad and domestically.

The Amsterdam Hermitage Museum was opened on 19 June 2009 by President Dmitry Medvedev and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.