Page 18 - (DK Eyewitness) Top 10 Travel Guide - St. Petersburg

16 ❯❯ Top 10 St Petersburg Highlights

Hermitage Works of Art

Madonna Litta
1
Leonardo da Vinci’s Madonna
Litta (c.1491) is a powerful work that
was often copied by his peers. It is
one of two paint ings by the artist in
this museum, the other being
Benois Madonna.
Abraham’s Sacrifice
2
This moving masterpiece
painted by Rembrandt in 1635
depicts the dramatic moment in
the Old Testament when an angel
prevents Abraham from sacrificing
his son to God. CATHERINE THE GREAT
Bacchus
3 Catherine the Great (above), a
self-confessed “glutton for art”, came to
Painted by Peter Paul
Rubens, Bacchus (1638–40) depicts power in Russia in 1762. In 1764, she
made the first significant purchases for
the Roman god of wine and the Hermitage. This initial batch – 225
intoxication as a bloated, obese works of European art bought from a
man, wholly abandoned to his own German merchant – is regarded as the
pleasure. The painting was part of birth of the Hermitage as an art gallery.
a private collection acquired by the Bulk purchases of art became the norm,
Hermitage in 1772. as Russian ambassadors and envoys
were ordered to build up the collection,
Music
4 buying from impoverished English,
Italian and Dutch aristocratic families.
Music was created by Henri
Matisse in 1910 for Sergey The tsarina’s personal favourites were
works by Rubens and Leonardo.
Shchukin’s Moscow mansion. The
painting depicts bright red figures,
Three Women
and was denounced at the time as 5
barbaric due to its evocative render­ Picasso’s Three Women (1908)
ing of abandon ment and spontaneity. is a precursor to the Cubist style that
developed in France between 1908
and 1914. There is a distinct African
influ ence in the bold use of colour
and the faces of the women, which
are in spi red by tribal masks.
St John the Divine
6
in Silence
A rare example of Russian art in
the Hermitage, this icon (1679)
was created by a painter from the
Kirillo­Byelozyorsk monas tery in
Arkhangelsk. It depicts St John in
deep contemplation of the Bible
with his hand touching his lips – a
sign that he is keeping silence in
accordance with his holy vow. The
icon’s date and place of creation is
St John the Divine in Silence recorded on its reverse.

016-017_Top_10_St-Petersburg.indd 16 10/10/2016 11:58