On 15 June 2023, the Russian Museum held a virtual tour round the permanent exposition of the museum in the Mikhailovsky Palace. Valentina Gorlova, Head of the Excursion and Lecture Department, told the viewers from Belgium, France, Russia and other countries about the masterpieces of Russian Art of the 12th to the mid -19 th centuries.

During the virtual tour the audience explored the rooms of the Grand Duke’s Mikhailovsky Palace that had been rebuilt in the late 19th century for the purposes of the art museum.

The viewers started exploring Russian art from the rooms of Old Russian Art where the icons of the 12th-14th centuries are presented. The highlights of this exposition are the famous Icon The Angel with Golden Hair, Miracle of St.George and Rublev’s icons. The tour went on in the rooms of the 18th century art when the secular art in Russia originated. The Portraits of Peter the Great and his contemporaries are the most remarkable works of that time.

The collection of the Russian Museum is both the history of Russian Fine Art and history of Russia that can be followed by the official portraits of Russian Emperors and Empresses. These are the Portrait of Peter III, a grandson of Peter I, created by one of the first Russian painters Alexei Antropov, sculptural Portrait of Anna Ioannovna by Bartolomeo Carlo Rastrelli, mosaic Portrait of Elizabeth Petrovna, a daughter of Peter I, and the Portrait of Catherine II by Dmitry Levitsky.

The technologies of panoramic photography enabled the visitors to view the Academic rooms of the Russian Museum and experience the scale of famous paintings The Last Day of Pompeii by Karl Brullov, The Ninth Wave and The Wave by Ivan Aivazovsky. The viewers could also see the works of Russian artists of the mid-19th and late 19th century such as The Major Makes a Proposal by Pavel Fedotov, The Threshing Barn by Alexei Venetsianov, and The Monastic Refectory by Vasily Perov.

The virtual tour finished in the rooms of Russian art of the late 19th century with the portraits by Ivan Kramskoi, landscapes by Ivan Shishkin and renowned paintings by Ilya Repin – The Barge Haulers on the Volga and Zaporozhian Cossacks.

The virtual tour was organised by the Russian Museum in collaboration with the Russian House in Brussels. The simultaneous translation from Russian into French was available thanks to the Russian House in Paris.

Online meetings with the Russian Museum in 2023 are devoted to the 125th anniversary of the museum’s opening for the visitors and goes on introducing the foreign audience to the history, collection and expositions of the Russian Museum.

The recording of the virtual tour is available at Media web-portal of the Russian Museum, in social networks of the Russian Museum, the Russian House in Brussels and Russian House in Paris.