On 10 March 2016 the exhibition “From Classicism to Impressionism. Three Centuries of French Painting in the Hermitage” was formally opened in the Palazzo Madama, Turin, Italy.
The exhibition has been organized by the State Hermitage in collaboration with the Palazzo Madama, Turin, with the support of the Fondazione Torino Musei and the Fondazione Ermitage Italia through the agency of Villaggio Globale Int. and is taking place under the agreement on cultural collaboration between the State Hermitage and the municipal authorities of the city of Turin.
The participants in the press conference accompanying the opening were Mikhail Piotrovsky. General Director of the State Hermitage; Dario Franceschini, Italy’s Minister of Culture and Tourism; Piero Fassino, Mayor of Turin; Patrizia Asproni, President of the Fondazione Torino Musei; and Maurizio Cecconi, General Secretary of the Hermitage–Italy Centre.
The collection of French paintings in the Hermitage is not only the largest outside of France itself, but, in terms of the names and works included, it rivals the most celebrated museums in the world. The appearance of such a collection in St Petersburg was undoubtedly a consequence of the special attitude to France and French culture in Russian society in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The exhibition presents 75 paintings by the foremost artists of the 17th–19th centuries. The most significant section is made up of the 18th-century works, which reflects the numerical make-up of the Hermitage’s collection of French painting as a whole. At the same time, each century is replete with the most famous names: Poussin, Watteau, Boucher, Chardin, Ingres, Monet, Cézanne.
Many of the pictures included in the exhibition were made in Italy. “The Russian image of France presented by Russian collections is fairly unique and makes it possible to understand something of the peculiarities of the Russian soul. Those peculiarities also include a great love of Italy, which, let us allow ourselves to presume, found reflection in the fact that many of the pictures on show in the exhibition were actually painted in Italy. Those include canvases by Poussin, Lorrain and Vernet, and Ingres’s celebrated masterpiece, the Portrait of Count Guryev,” Mikhail Piotrovsky pointed out.
Alongside pictures from the Hermitage’s main display, the exhibition features works that have never, or not for a long time, been shown in the museum. These includes a large canvas by Laurent de La Hyre of Saint Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, Putting a Cross on Saint Genevieve, a Self-Portrait with Daughters by Jean-Laurent Mosnier and an Allegory of War by François Perrier.
Of particular interest to Turinese visitors is Carle Vanloo’s painting Rest of Diana. This early work of the highest quality was produced by the artist as a preparatory sketch for a ceiling painting at Stupinigi, the hunting residence of the Royal House of Savoy that is one of the chief sights in the environs of Turin.
The exhibition has been prepared by the State Hermitage’s Department of Western European Fine Art. The exhibition curator is Natalya Borisovna Diomina, a researcher in that department.
The SKIRA publishing house (Italy) has produced an illustrated scholarly catalogue for the exhibition. It has a foreword by Mikhail Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage.
