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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Eves and welcome to this Day in History class,

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Speaker 1: a show that uncovers history one day at a time.

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Speaker 1: Today is February five, nineteen. The day was February five,

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty two. In St. Petersburg, the new Hermitage Museum

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Speaker 1: open to the public. It was the first art museum

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Speaker 1: in Russia and probably the first art gallery in Eastern Europe,

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Speaker 1: built specifically to house museum collections. Emperor Nicholas the First

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Speaker 1: commissioned German neo classicist architect Leo von Klins to design

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Speaker 1: the public museum in Architects Nikolai Yefimov and Vassili Stassov

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Speaker 1: oversaw its construction. The building was grand, with this colonnaded

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Speaker 1: entrance and Baroque ornamentation, and it was home to a

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Speaker 1: lot of impressive art like Egyptian antiquities and Renaissance works.

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Speaker 1: Catherine the Great founded the Hermitage in seventeen sixty four

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Speaker 1: when she bought a collection of art that was supposed

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Speaker 1: to go to King Frederick the Second of Prussia. She

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Speaker 1: acquired hundreds of paintings, mostly from Flemish and Dutch artists.

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Speaker 1: They included works by Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyke,

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Speaker 1: and a bunch of other guys who made sought after artworks.

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Speaker 1: But even though the Hermitage was a marvel of art

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Speaker 1: from all over the world, it was also a shiny

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Speaker 1: symbol of power and class. When Catherine the Second started

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Speaker 1: the collection in seventeen sixty four, it was a private

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Speaker 1: court museum. There weren't many people who were allowed to

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Speaker 1: see the work. Catherine even called the gallery my hermitage

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Speaker 1: because of its exclusivity. The Empress's initial acquisition was an

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Speaker 1: impressive hall of old masters, but she didn't stop there.

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Speaker 1: She acquired himrich Count von Rules collection from Saxony, and

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Speaker 1: she bought a collection of paintings from Pierre Crosat in France,

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Speaker 1: and in seventeen seventy nine she bought hundreds of pieces

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Speaker 1: from British Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole's collection. By the

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Speaker 1: end of the eighteenth century, Catherine was swimming and painted masterpieces, gems, cameos, sculptures, drawings, books, coins,

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Speaker 1: and other super important and expensive artifacts. Catherine had to

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Speaker 1: have somewhere to put all those splendid items, so she

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Speaker 1: come the construction of the Great Hermitage, a building that

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Speaker 1: was finished in sevente By the time Catherine the Great

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Speaker 1: died in sevent the Imperial art collection was massive. She

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Speaker 1: was a dedicated patron of the arts. That said, the

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Speaker 1: social structure in Russia under her reign was troubled, even

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Speaker 1: though the Hermitages collection was a showy display of Russian enlightenment.

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Speaker 1: Over the years, the collection expanded to include Greek and

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Speaker 1: Scythian relics and other antiquities. So to make more room

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Speaker 1: for the ever growing collection, Nicholas the First called for

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Speaker 1: the construction of the new Hermitage, which took about a

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Speaker 1: decade to be built. After the new Hermitage opened to

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Speaker 1: the public in eighteen fifty two, the museum continued to

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Speaker 1: add notable artworks to his collection, including pieces by da

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Speaker 1: Vinci and Italian painter Raphael But change was coming. After

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Speaker 1: the nineteen seventeen Revolution in Russia, the Imperial Hermitage and

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Speaker 1: many private art collections became property of the Soviet state.

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Speaker 1: A lot of that newly acquired art was sent to

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Speaker 1: the Hermitage, including more works by old masters, Cubist pieces

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Speaker 1: pa Picasso, and works by Matisse and Van Gogh. At

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Speaker 1: the same time, Stalin carelessly sold a bunch of valuable

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Speaker 1: masterpieces like The Annunciation by Jan Vanak and Adoration of

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Speaker 1: the Magi by Boticelli. The Hermitage also suffered some losses

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Speaker 1: when the building became a target during World War Two.

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Speaker 1: But when the Second World War ended in nineteen the

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Speaker 1: Russian government tried to exact a sort of cultural revenge

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Speaker 1: for their artistic losses. The Hermitage was given dozens of

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Speaker 1: Impressionists and post Impressionist paintings that the Red Army had

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Speaker 1: ease from private German collections. These looted artworks were boldly

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Speaker 1: put on display at the Hermitage in in an exhibition

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Speaker 1: called Hidden Treasures Revealed. Today, the Hermitage is home to

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Speaker 1: almost three million items from prehistoric to modern art. I'm

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Speaker 1: each Jeffcote, and hopefully you know a little more about

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Speaker 1: history today than you did yesterday. You can subscribe to

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Speaker 1: This Day and History Class on Apple Podcasts, the I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. Tune

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Speaker 1: in tomorrow for another Day in History.