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.
Mikhail Botkin
In 1917, his widow deposited thirty-two sealed boxes of especially valuable artworks at the Russian Museum (presumably to protect them during World War I) with the provision that they would become the museum's property if she had not reclaimed them within a year of the war's end. She died later that same year. Accordingly, the museum took possession. After the Revolution/Civil War, some of the artworks and books in the boxes were transferred to the Hermitage Museum. Over 200 pieces of gold cloisonné were sold by the Soviet government to collectors in Europe and the United States, supposedly from Botkin's collection, but their authenticity has been questioned by technical experts, based on chemical analysis.