On 18 May 2019, the State Hermitage as usual participated in the international Night of Museums event. The special programme took place at several of the museum’s facilities at once.
The Manege of the Small Hermitage
The exhibition "Gods. Men. Heroes. From the collection of the Museo Archeologico, Naples and the Parco Archeologico di Pompei" was open to visitors, and over 800 took advantage of this.
The display features more than 200 masterpieces of ancient art that also include items from the Hermitage’s own “Pompeian” collection. For the first time, museum visitors in Russia will be able to view world-famous objects – frescoes, mosaics, bronze and marble sculptures, exquisite works of decorative and applied art, articles of everyday use. It brings to life the poetic subjects of traditional mythology, and through them the morals, customs, attitudes and beliefs, private and public lives of the Ancient Romans. The unique exhibition tells about the deeds of the gods, the amazing adventures and accomplishments of human heroes and, of course, about ordinary mortals who lived in the 1st century AD, their appearance, daily habits, leisure activities, and lifestyle.
Chemical Elements festival
For the first time the State Hermitage, in partnership with “Science Quarter”, an informal association of scientific organizations located on the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island (the Institute of High-Molecular Compounds, the Dokuchayev Museum of Soil Science and the Institute of Pre-Cambrian Geology and Geochronology), participated in the open-air Chemical Elements festival devoted to the 150th anniversary of Mendeleyev’s Periodic Table.
The Hermitage’s part of the programme consisted of a special programme form visitors entitled “Elementary Mythology in the Hermitage” that included the table-top game “Be a Mendeleyev, Compile a table of elements from mythology”, and also master classes on the art of classical antiquity prepared by the State Hermitage’s volunteers.
Those attending the festival were also able to listen to a lecture by the artist Anatoly Belkin: “Art – the chaos had ended”.
The overall festival programme allowed people to learn about the role of the elements in various sciences and take part in quests around the laboratories. Scientists and artists created a chemical alphabet. In the open-air geologists pitched a field camp. The culmination of the night’s programme was the “Law of Octaves” concert.
The Chemical Elements festival was visited by around 5,000 people.
Menshikov Palace
At the Menshikov Palace more than 280 people to visited a display that reflects interior decoration in the first quarter of the 18th century. In the Great Hall of the palace they were able to acquaint themselves with a temporary exhibition “Peter Brueghel the Younger: The Preaching of St John the Baptist” marking the completion of the restoration of that painting.
Staraya Derevnya Restoration and Storage Centre
For the Night of Museums, the State Hermitage’s unique Restoration and Storage Centre invited people to tour the open-storage facility.
A special guided tour of the revamped open-storage Costume Gallery was conducted by Nina Ivanovna Tarasova, head of the Applied Art Sector in the Department of the History of Russian Culture.
In the vestibule of the Restoration and Storage Centre guests were regaled with classical music performed by Russian and American students and teachers as part of the 35th festival of the Educational Bridge project.
Around 300 people visited the Staraya Derevnya centre during the Night of Museums.
