An exhibition of prints opened at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts

The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts together with the Russian State Library presented the exhibition "Treasury of Graphics. The engraving cabinet in the first quarter of the 20th century". Pushkin's Ars Graphica project is designed to demonstrate what is usually hidden from the eyes of visitors and to remind about the history of the formation of the collection of the State Museum of Fine Arts.

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Founded in 1828 on the basis of the meeting of the Alexander State Chancellor Nikolai Rumyantsev, the institution initially operated in St. Petersburg, but then was moved to Moscow. Many valuable books and works of art were available to the townspeople. In 1924, the museum was disbanded, making the Lenin Library on its basis. The paintings and graphics were given to the State Museum of Fine Arts. The last head of the Fine Arts Department of the Rumyantsev Museum was Nikolai Ilyich Romanov. He continued to work on the meeting already in the status of director of the State Museum of Fine Arts.

The new exhibition illustrates this story with archival materials — catalogs and reports from the engraving cabinet of the Rumyantsev Museum, correspondence between Romanov and artists. But the main thing is the works of printed graphics, which were exhibited back in pre—revolutionary times.

The exhibition features the Apollo Belvedere by Hendrik Goltzius, the surreal "Dream of Raphael" by Giorgio Ghisi, the finest etching "Abraham and Three Angels" by Rembrandt, and finally the mysterious "Dream of the Doctor" by Durer.

However, it is not this "showcase" section of the exhibition that seems to be more valuable (literally and figuratively, the sheets of the XVI—XVII centuries are stored in showcases), but the things on the walls: mostly these are prints from the beginning of the XX century, among which there are many monotypes, that is, images that exist in a single copy.

Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:

Right on schedule: Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts demonstrates a variety of prints