The Easel

Is This the Greatest National Museum in the World?

Since Peter the Great, the Tsars have all wanted their country to be a part of modern Europe. One device to affect this shift in outlook was to buy current European art for the Hermitage – “a literal, almost limitless palace of human imagination”. Centuries of acquisitions have produced an “encyclopedic” collection, leading to the reviewer’s unprovable but plausible claim.