The french school art. Part III

Tapestries and gobelins are represented with great completeness. Three gobelins from the “Months” series, woven in the second half of the 17th century after the designs of Lebrun (Hermitage, room 293), “The Hunt of the Duke of Lorrain”, woven in Nancy factory (room 292), the series of the “Story of Esther” (rooms 296, 303), gobelins from “The Golden Fleece” series (Hermitage, room 303), the gold woven gobelin “The Children- Gardeners” exemplify but do not exhaust the noteworthy pieces.
The collection of furniture contains many famous examples among which may be seen an ebony cabinet carved in relief to the designs of Antoine Lepotre (Hermitage, room 293), a wardrobe by Cahrles Boulie exemplifying to the artist’s great advantage his early marquetry work (room 293), a secretaire signed by J. Riesener (room 289), many works by David Roentgen, and other notable examples. There is also a superb collection of porcelain * including many unique pieces of which the “Cameo Service”, an outstanding production of the Sevre factory, made in 1778 to the order of Catherine II, is the noteworthiest. The service derives its name from the fact that it is ornamented with genuine antique cameos. A great number of textiles, ormolu, metalwork, ceramics and enamels are on view throughout the exhibition.
The collection of the nineteenth-century works of art comprises a large variety of excellent pictures, the main emphasis falling upon the second half of the century. The patrons of the pre-revolutionary Hermitage neglecting the nineteenth-century paintings, this part of the collection was formed entirely under the Soviet Power. The collection is illustrative of different artistic trends of the early and mid-nineteenth century represented by the works of Jacques Louis David, Antoine Jean Gros, Boilly, Eugene Delacroix and other artists. The paintings of the “Barbizon” School (Hermitage, 2nd floor, rooms 338 — 340), are particularly noteworthy as forming an important collection for the study of the French realist landscape painting of the 19th century. Theodore Rousseau, Jules Dupre, Charles Francois Daubigny, and Camilie Corot, Charles EmileJacque, Constant Troyon, are shown by a great number of first class paintings of the most celebrated types.Millet and Courbet are represented, unfortunately, only by one work each, the “Women Carrying Firewood” by Millet being a fairly representative example of the artist’s style, while Courbet’s “Landscape with a Dead Horse” can’t give a sufficient idea of the painter’s realistic achievement (Hermitage, 2nd floor, room 340).
The Hermitage is particularly rich in Impressionist painting (Hermitage, 2nd floor, rooms 343, 344). Though lacking canvases by Manet, it contains 8 works by Claude Monet showing the evolution of the painter’s style from his early “Woman in a Garden” painted in the 1860′s to the “London Fog” (“Waterloo Bridge”) executed in 1903 and fully characteristic of his impressionist style; there are canvases by Alfred Sisley and Camille Pissarro; 6 works by Pierre Auguste Renoir including the life-size portrait of the actress Jeanne Samary, the “Woman in Black”, and the “Girl with a Fan”; pastels by Edgar Degas ; and sculptures by Auguste Rodin of which “The Age of Bronze”, is the original gesso for the bronze sculptures bearing the same name.
The -post-Impressionist painters of the late-nineteenth and earlytwentieth century, each emerging as a personality offering an original solution of the problems which confront him, and establishing-each an independent style, — are shown by a great variety of their works forming. a collection perhaps one of the finest in existence.
Paul Cezanne (Hermitage, 2nd floor, room 345) is represented by 11 canvases comprising landscapes, still lifes, portraits and figure compositions, i. e. all the kinds of subjects which were treated by the painter. The “Self-Portrait”, “Banks of the Marne”, “Large Pine-Tree”, “Mont Saint- Victoire”, “The Smoker”, the “Still Life with a Drapery” are most typical examples of the artist’s style.
Van-Gogh (Hermitage, 2nd floor, room 346) is represented by 4 canvases painted during his stay in Aries (1888—1889).
Pablo Picasso (Hermitage, 2nd floor, room 350) is represented by 31 canvases, the “Absinthe Drinker” (1901) being the earliest picture of his in the collection. To the early “blue” period belong also “The Encounter”, “Portrait of Soler”, and “Head of a Woman”. The “Still Life with Glass Vessels” (1905) and two fine gouache drawings — the “Boy with a Dog” and the “Nude Boy” are also characteristic of his early works; the “Woman with a Fan” (1908), the “Three Women” (1909), the “Flute and Violin” may be chosen as typical examples of the artist’s cubist style.
The Museum possesses also a fine collection of Albert Marqnet’s landscapes (2nd floor, room 349), paintings by Pierre Bonnard, Andre Derain, Henri Rousseau, Paul Signас and many other artists of that time.
An important place among the French section’s treasures belongs to a large and comprehensive collection of prints and drawings , of which a representative selection is on show throughout the whole exhibition. The collection of drawings by Jacques Callotis one of the finest in the world; Poussin and Lorrain, Watteau, Boucher, Greuze, are shown by outstanding examples of their draughtsmanship; exceptionally rich is a group of graphic satires by Honorё Daumierand Paul Gavarni; there are many examples of impressionist and post-impressionist prints and drawings, the most valuable being the litographs by Henri Toulouse-Lautrecand Thёоphile Steinlen. Even a short enumeration of the art treasures possessed by the French section permits lo understand how right both the Soviet and foreign cultural workers are in considering the collection to be one of the finest outside France.
Priceless works of art and cultural memorials gathered at the Museum provide the widest opportunity of studying the cultural legacy of the past. The further growth of the collections is aimed at representing still wider the contribution of every nation to the cultural riches of the Mankind.