I talked about the Winter Palace and mentioned The State Hermitage Museum last time. This week, I am going to focus on the story of The State Hermitage Museum. Let me recall some key details with you first.
The Museum is considered to be one of the greatest museums in the world, and it encompasses six historic buildings, such as the Winter Palace and Menshikov Palace （緬希科夫宮）, which is the first large stone building in St. Petersburg. So, the Museum has a distinctive outlook. But, as mentioned last time, its inner "beauty" is what it is famous for.
It was all begun in 1764, when a collection of artworks was purchased by the Empress Catherine the Great （葉卡捷琳娜大帝） from a Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky （戈茨科夫斯基）. After that, the collection of the Museum continues to grow. During the time of Imperial Russia （俄羅斯帝國）, tsars helped with enriching the collection by acquiring more collections from around the globe, for example, Sir Robert Walpole's （羅伯特．沃波爾） collection in 1779.
Even after the Russian Revolution in 1917 （1917年俄國革命）, some Russian aristocratic （貴族的） families' private collections became a part of the Museum collection.
However, during the Cold War, it seems like that the Museum took it slow in the progress of enriching its collection.
The most possible reason is Russians were focusing on repairing the Museum. It is beacuse the Museum suffered a serious damage from the German army during the World War II, Russians prefer repairing rather than to spending time in acquiring more items.
Now you know that the quantity of items owned by the Museum is huge, but you may wonder apart from the quantity of items, does the Museum really worthy to be considered to be a great museum? Of course! The quality of the collection of the Museum is actually outstanding as well.
You may find works of nearly all the greatest Western artists in the Museum, as long as you can name it.
Leonardo da Vinci （李奧納多．達文西）? Sure, the Museum has paintings and a sculpture created by Leonardo.
Vincent van Gogh （文森．梵谷）? A few Post-Impressionism （後印象派） paintings of his are kept in the Museum.
And, the list can go on, such as Pablo Picasso （畢卡索）, Claude Monet （克洛德．莫內）, etc.
Therefore, this collection is rich in both quantity and quality. Without questions, the Museum does live up to its nicknames （實至名歸）.
■米奇 中大通識碩士，工作數年又跑去英國留學，順道看看外國文化
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