Hermitage Revealed
Hermitage Revealed is a documentary film directed by Margy Kinmonth and produced by Foxtrot Films Ltd which tells the story of the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg - formerly a royal palace and now one of the largest and most visited museums in the world. Holding over 3 million objects and with more curators than any other museum, the exhibits go back to Catherine the Great. Celebrating the museum's 250th anniversary in 2014, the film shows how the collection came about, how it survived revolutionary times and what makes the Hermitage Museum unique today.
Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings
The Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings in 1930 and 1931 resulted in the departure of some of the most valuable paintings from the collection of the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad to Western museums. Several of the paintings had been in the Hermitage Collection since its creation by Empress Catherine the Great. About 250 paintings were sold, including masterpieces by Jan van Eyck, Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens, Raphael, and other important artists. Andrew Mellon donated the twenty-one paintings he purchased from the Hermitage to the United States government in 1937, which became the nucleus of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.