The Collection

Paintings: Karl Bryullov’s The Last Day of Pompei (1833) and Ivan Aivazovsky’s The Ninth Wave probably top most people’s list of “must sees” at the Russian Museum. But also be sure to see: Orest Kiprensky’s Portrait of Yevgraf Davydov, Pyotr Basin’s Susannah and the Elders, Alexei Ventsianov’s The Threshing Barn, Bryullov’s Portrait of Countess Yulia Samoilova Retiring from a Ball with the Adopted Daughter Amazilia Paccini, Vasily Tropinin’s Guitarist and Girl with a Doll, and Pavel Fedotov’s The Major Makes a Proposal.

Of course that is only the very tip of the iceberg. The museum holds a rich collection of Itinerant art, of which Victor Vasnetsov’s Warrior on the Crossroads (1882), Ilya Repin’s Barge Haulers on the Volga (1870-1873) and Zaporozhye Cossacks (1880-1891) are perhaps the most famous. The museum also boasts Repin’s largest painting (4x9 meters): The Meeting of the State Council on May 7, 1901, on its 100th Anniversary

Icons: This part of the collection includes some 6,000 items, including the museum’s oldest icon (12th century) of St. Gabriel (Angel with Golden Hair), Belozerskaya Madonna (early 13th century), Sts. Boris and Gleb (14th century), icons by Andrei Rublyov and many others. Many icons were gifts from churches themselves, which hoped to save them from destruction by donating them to the museum. The museum has fine representations of all the major city styles, from Novgorod and Pskov to Moscow and Vologda.