Marking the Year of the Cultural Heritage of the Peoples of Russia: The exhibition “Kolomenskoe. 100 Masterpieces of Russian Art. Beyond the Boundaries of Time” presented at the New Manege in Moscow

The exhibition Kolomeskoe. 100 Masterpieces of Russian Art. Beyond the Boundaries of Time has been opened at the New Manege in Moscow. The project is presented by the Kolomeskoe-Izmailovo Moscow State Integrated Museum-Reserve within the Moscow art week and the Year of the Cultural Heritage of the Peoples of Russia. The exhibition launches a series of events, timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary since the founding of the Kolomenskoe Museum-Reserve that will be celebrated in 2023.

«Next year, the Kolomeskoe Museum-Reserve will mark its 100th anniversary. The work, started thanks to the limitless energy of Pyotr Baranovsky, continues to this day. Today, Kolomenskoe is an extensive collection that features almost 170 thousand items. The visitors to the exhibition in the New Manege will have an opportunity to see the most memorable pieces. For many years, museum’s restorers and curators have worked on this display. The exhibition will feature special texts and annotations to the selected monuments that will allow to explore the familiar and beloved by many Kolomenskoe from an unexpected point of view», - stated Marina Lyulchuck, Director of the Kolomenskoe-Izmailovo Moscow State Integrated Museum-Reserve.

The unique collection of Ancient Rus’ iconography, monuments of decorative arts and archeology has been formed from the first years since the founding of the Kolomeskoe Museum-Reserve. It is based on the works of art transferred from the churches and monasteries closed for worship, abandoned noble manors and chambers of Moscow, Russian North, regions of Central Russia and Volga Region (Povolzhye). The collection’s creation is one of the most successful initiatives of the museum’s founder Pyotr Baranovsky. Most of the monuments have entered the collection during the years of his activity (1923-1933) and have been delivered by Baranovsky himself.

The Museum-Reserve was the first Russian Museum to build collections on architecture. During the destruction of buildings of civil architecture and churches in the years of the reconstruction of Moscow in 1930s, the collection has been entered by white stone carvings, forged metal lattices, bells. Tiles from the facades of Moscow temples have launched the collection that later became the biggest one in Russia. The unique collection of the fragments of Russian wooden architecture has been formed during the expeditions around Russia. Within the walls of the Museum, these monuments got a new life and were preserved as parts of the national cultural heritage.

At the exhibition in the New Manege, visitors will have an opportunity to explore the best part of the collection – ancient icons, gilded carvings of iconostasis, tiles and white stone décor of Moscow’s buildings, art metal, pieces of wooden house carvings. Special attention is given to Moscow’s monuments – works made by remarkable Moscow’s icon painters, carvers, foundry men, and other masters who created the unique image of the ancient Russian capital. The exhibition covers the period from XVI till XIX century.

Most of the exhibits (details of wooden gilded carvings and sculpture, furniture, ethnographic items, fragments of white stone carvings) are directly linked to the preserved and forever lost churches and architectural monuments of Moscow of XVI-XIX century: the Sukharev Tower, the Church of Cosmas and Damian in Nizhny Sadovniki, the Big Cross Church of Nicholas the Wonderworker, the Nikolo-Ugreshsky and Simonov Monasteries.

Numerous items of XVII century from the collections of the Kolomeskoe Museum-Reserve can compete with the works from the collections of the leading museums of the country. These include icons and gilded carvings by the masters of the Kremlin Armoury in the Moscow Kremlin, monuments of Russian North (from Kholmogory, Solovets Monastery, Sumsky Pasad, Vologda and Nizhny Novgorod Governorates), as well as another wonderful exhibit – ceramic fireplace by Mikhail Vrubin “Mikula Selyannovich and Volga”, created in 1898-1899.

Kolomenskoe is the one of a kind Museum-Reserve that has monuments of history, architecture, archeology and nature. It cherishes the historical memory not only in stone and wooden buildings, but also in the biggest diverse museum’s collection that will be available to visitors thanks to this exhibition project.