The pushki n state museum of fine arts

The Royal family at the opening ceremony of the Museum, 1912
In 1894, Ivan Tsvetaev, the father of the poet Marina Tsvetaeva, proposed at the First Congress of Russian artists and art lovers to create an educational Museum. Four years later, the project was presented to Emperor Nicholas II. The Emperor approved the project and allocated 200,000 rubles for the construction of the Museum. Many investors, having learned about the approval of Nicholas II, also allocated a total of about 200,000 rubles, provided that the Museum will bear the name of Alexander the third.

TSVETAEV COLLECTION OF PLASTER CAST REPRODUCTIONS
Collecting exhibits for the Museum began even before the opening. Masterpieces of culture at that time were already impossible to buy, so initially the Museum exhibited copies of works of ancient culture.
Portrait of Caracalla (186-217)

Brothers Ilyas and Joseph Brooch. Cupids fighting for the heart
The first originals in the Museum appeared only a year after the opening of the Museum thanks to Dmitry Khomyakov. These were Italian sculptures from the 16th century.

Rinaldo and Armida by Nicolas Poussin
Initially, the Museum did not present paintings. Only 14 years after the opening of the Museum began a regular exhibition of European paintings then the Museum was brought such famous paintings as: "Rinaldo and Armida" by Nicolas Poussin, "Bacchanal" by Peter Paul Rubens, portraits by Harmens van Rijn Rembrandt, "still Life with the attributes of art" by Jean-Baptiste Chardin, "Satire on doctors" by Antoine Watteau.

Claude Monet
Boulevar des Capucines. 1873
In 1948, after the closure of the state Museum of new Western art, the Museum received about 300 works by French and American artists. In the same year, the Museum received such famous masterpieces as: "Boulevard des Capuchins in Paris" by Claude Monet, "Blue dancers" by Edgar Degas, "Nude" by Pierre Auguste Renoir, "Bridge over the Marne in Creteuil" and two views of mount Saint-Victoire by Paul Cezanne, "Red vineyards in Arles" and "prisoners' Walk»Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin, Pierre Bonnard, Andre Derain and Fernand Leger. In 1950, the Museum received works by artists from European socialist countries.

In 1949, all the exhibits were removed to the basement and the Museum was given over to an exhibition of gifts sent to Joseph Stalin for his 70th birthday. After Stalin's death, the Museum exposition was returned to its place.

Pablo Picasso
Old Jew and a Boy (Blind Beggar with a Boy). 1903
Three years later, the Museum hosted an exhibition of paintings by Pablo Picasso. The Soviet authorities allowed the exhibition only because of Pablo Picasso's participation in the international Communist movement.

Kazimir Malevich
Children on the grass. 1908
In 1981, the Museum hosted the exhibition Moscow Paris. It exhibited works by avant-garde artists. The exhibition featured works by Vasily Kandinsky, Pavel Filonov, Vladimir Tatlin, Kazimir Malevich.

Edgar Degas
Blue dancers. Circa 1898

Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Portrait of Jeanne Samary. 1877

Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Marie Raymond de
Woman at a window. 1889

Vincent van Gogh
Red Vineyard at Arles (Montmajour). November 1888

Philipp Veit
Portrait of a Woman. 1820-s

Lorrain, Claude
THE RAPE OF EUROPE. 1655

André Derain
Drying the Sails. 1905

Sandro Botticelli
Annuciation. 1495-1498

Giovanni Antonio Canal (Canaletto)
Bucentaur's return to the pier by the Palazzo ducale. 1727-1729

Edgar Degas
Ballet Rehearsal. 1875-1877

Pierre-Auguste Renoir
In the garden. Under the trees of Moulin de la Galette. 1876

Caspar David Friedrich
1810-s

Claude Monet
Luncheon on the Grass. 1866

Pablo Picasso
Young Acrobat on a Ball. 1905

Edouard Manet
The Bar. 1878-1879

Francisco de Zurbarán
The Madonna and Child. 1658