The collection of materials which illustrate the mature medieval cultures in present-day Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan is, infortunately, incomplete. Particularly notable among objects of Georgian provenance are a medallion of St George executed in the technique of cloisonné enamel, fragments of silver icon frames from the eleventh to sixteenth centuries, including two plaques by the eleventh-century master craftsman Ivaneh Monisadzeh, and details of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century carved architectural decorations, a recent gift to the Hermitage from the Georgian SSR Museum of Arts. Among relics of Armenian origin there are fragments of fresco paintings from the Bakhtageki church at Ani (thirteenth century); a bell, found near Poti, and some tenth- to thirteenth-century ceramics and fragments of stucco decorations from the ninth or tenth and twelfth or thirteenth centuries, yielded by the excavations at Ani, Anberd and Dvin, and recently donated to the Hermitage by the History Museum of Armenia. The culture and arts of the peoples living in the territory of Azerbaijan are illustrated by tiles of Iranian work from Pir Hussein Revanan’s tomb at Khanakah (west of Baku), ceramics from the ninth to thirteenth centuries, and bas-reliefs and bronze cauldrons from medieval Daghestan (again mainly from the Kubachi village).
55
Statue of Pharaoh Amenemhet III
Black granite. Egypt. 1900—1800 B.C.
56
Decoration for a tunic with a representation of the Goddess Gaea
Fabric. Coptic Egypt. 4th century
57
Relief with archers
Alabaster. Assyria. 8th century
58
Eagle-shaped water-carrier
Bronze. Persia. 11th century
59
Neck ornament
Gold. Eastern Persia. 4th century B.C.
60
Diptych representing circus scenes
Ivory. Byzantium. 5th century
61
Icon of St Gregory the Thaumaturgist
Byzantium. 12th century
62
Airtam frieze
Marl limestone. Central Asia. 2nd century
63
Patterned fabric
Persia. 16th century
64
Painted faience bowl
Persia. 12th century
65
Bronze figure of a winged deity
Urartu. 7th century
66
Sassanian silver dish with a representation of King Shapur II hunting
Persia. 4th century
67
Glass lamp
Syria. 14th century
68
Painted faience jug
Turkey, Iznik. 16th century
69
Silver phalar (decoration of a horse harness)
Graeco-Bactria (?). 3rd century B.C.
70
Central Asia, Pianjikent. 8th century
71
Head of a Buddhist monk
Unbaked clay. Central Asia. Ajin-Tepe Monastery. 8th century
72
Clay figurines: Bodhisattva and monk
China. 7th century
73
Crystal vessel
Egypt. 10th century
74
Porcelain pitcher
China. 14th century
75
Paper, mineral colours. Mongolia, Khara-Khoto. 9th century
76
Ando Hiroshige. 1797—1858. Japan
77
Piled rug
Persia, Kashan. Second half of the 19th century
78
Bronze cauldron from the Mosque of Khwaja Ahmad Yasevi
Town of Turkestan. 14th century
79
Silver dish representing a Nereid riding a hippocampus
Rome. 2nd century
80
Lacquered box
Painted by Muhammad Ali. Persia. 18th century
81
Icon of Jama, Master of Hell
Tibet, Lamaian school. 19th century
82
Silk, mineral colours. Mongolia, Khara-Khoto 9th century
83
Steel dagger
The Caucasus. 19th century
84
Miniature on paper. India. Lamaian school. 18th century
The Department of Western European Art
The early history of the Department of Western European Art may be said to resemble, in some respects, that of St Petersburg-Leningrad itself. Just as the new Russian capital, founded on the barren, swampy banks of the Neva, came to rival the luxury and splendour of Europe’s ancient capitals in a mere two and a half decades, so the collection of works of Western European art, which was started in 1764 — the date traditionally regarded as the year of the Hermitage’s foundation — needed only twenty-five years to attain that wealth and variety which placed it on a par with the most celebrated collections of Western Europe.
Isolated specimens of Western European art had of course found their way into Russia during the preceding periods, especially during the reign of Peter the Great, but consistent and purposeful collecting began only in the second half of the eighteenth century. The earliest acquisitions made by Catherine II were intended to decorate the sumptuous apartments of the huge new Winter Palace. Very soon, however, the palace collection outgrew its decorative function and turned into a veritable art museum, the nucleus of the future Hermitage.