Constructed as an annex to the Winter Palace where the empress of Russia could obtain privacy, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg evolved, because of Catherine the Great’s concerted purchasing efforts, to be a world-renowned museum housing many of Europe’s great artistic masterpieces.
On November 6, 1796, Catherine the Great died in her bedroom—one of the 1,054 rooms composing the Winter Palace
The Hermitage Museum, c. 1890’s.
In 1762, when Catherine took the throne following the orchestrated murder of her husband, Czar Peter III,
Catherine’s first major acquisition was a collection of 225 Flemish and Dutch paintings purchased from King Frederick the Great
In 1772, Catherine achieved a coup in Paris with the purchase of the world-renowned collection of the French banker Baron Pierre Crozat, which included masterpieces by Anthony van Dyck, Raphael, Titian, and Peter Paul Rubens. Catherine repeated her triumph in 1785 with the purchase of the collection of the Count Baudouin. Catherine’s raid on London caused a heated debate in the House of Commons; however, she emerged in 1779 with one of England’s greatest collections, the 198-masterpiece gallery (including 15 van Dycks) of Robert Walpole, Great Britain’s first prime minister. The purchase of the entire collection meant an instant fortune to Walpole’s financially strapped heirs. Catherine commemorated the event by providing Walpole’s grandson with an elegant portrait of herself painted by Alexander Roslin.
The portico of the Hermitage Museum, c. 1890’s.
While Catherine’s agents had the resources of a royal treasury at their disposal, enabling them to purchase entire collections, they also targeted specific pieces at auctions held throughout Europe to add breadth or specific themes, usually of a pastoral or classical nature, to the Hermitage collection. The French Revolution and the subsequent emigration of many French aristocrats (émigrés) provided numerous opportunities for the strategic purchase of art in sets and individual pieces.
Catherine commissioned famous artists of her day, such as Sir Joshua Reynolds, Jean-Baptiste Chardin, and Claude-Joseph Vernet, to add to the Hermitage collection. She also commissioned works by relatively unknown émigré French female artists, such as Marie Anne Collot and Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun. Moreover, art for Catherine included not only paintings and drawings but also antiquities. In 1787, a large collection of classical busts and reliefs was purchased from the director of the Bank of England, adding to the collection of the Hermitage’s classical busts and sculptures. The Crimea, which Catherine annexed
The need to accommodate Catherine’s cornucopia of art caused the Hermitage to expand into four connected buildings. The final addition was the Hermitage Theater, completed in 1787. There, Russia’s elite and foreign dignitaries attending theatrical performances could be entertained in the art exhibition galleries. Catherine, who led Russia to annex more than 200,000 square miles during the course of her reign, nearly doubling its population, presided over an equally impressive growth of her capital city as a major European cultural center.
During the first quarter of the eighteenth century, Peter the Great built a new capital of Russia in a marshland. St. Petersburg
In her memoirs, Catherine considered the Hermitage as her little retreat, where she could delight in her things, which were shared largely with the palace mice. However, it is clear that her real joy came from the image her things created. Possession of so much of the great art of Europe enhanced Russia’s identity as a sophisticated and culturally advanced European state. The great collection of the Hermitage was part of a royal residence rivaling Versailles in grandeur and elegance. The imperial palace itself was part of a city directed by Catherine to be expanded in a colossal manner according to neoclassical styles of the time. Less than a century old, St. Petersburg would stand as Europe’s most modern capital city.
From the start of her reign, Catherine courted leading Enlightenment figures such as Denis Diderot and Voltaire. She used them to project an image of herself as an enlightened “First Servant of the State” ruling according to the rational principles of natural law. The identity of that state was European and culturally advanced. Catherine also embraced new scientific knowledge of the time, such as smallpox vaccination, in part to project a modern image. Catherine’s French-speaking court nobles, elegantly dressed in the latest Parisian fashions, completed the remake of Russia’s image. The fact that the overwhelming majority of Russians were illiterate and impoverished serfs remained obscured.
Following Catherine’s death in 1796, the Hermitage was considered an imperial museum by her son, Czar Paul I
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Alexander, John T. Catherine the Great: Life and Legend. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. A readable and balanced narrative history of Catherine’s life and works. Index and bibliography. -
Lincoln, W. Bruce. Sunlight at Midnight: St. Petersburg and the Rise of Modern Russia. New York: Basic Books, 2002. As scholarly analysis of the growth of St. Petersburg as Russia’s cultural center by a leading Russian historian showing that St. Petersburg was in many ways closer to major European cities than other Russian cities. Index and bibliography. -
Steward, James. Treasures of the Hermitage. New York: Merrell, 2003. A study of the development of the Hermitage collection; 250 color illustrations, index, and bibliography.
Founding of St. Petersburg
Development of Great Britain’s Office of Prime Minister
Foundation of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences
Foundation of St. Petersburg’s Imperial Ballet School
The Antiquities of Athens Prompts Architectural Neoclassicism
Catherine the Great’s Instruction
Founding of Bolshoi Theatre Company
Catherine the Great; Denis Diderot; Frederick the Great; Peter the Great; Peter III; Sir Joshua Reynolds; Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun; Voltaire; Robert Walpole.