History of Moscow: The exhibition "Landscapes of old Moscow. Watercolors from the collection of the Historical Museum" is opened to the 870th anniversary of the capital

The exhibition "Landscapes of old Moscow. Watercolors from the collection of the Historical Museum. to the 870th anniversary of Moscow" is opened in the State Historical Museum on June 27, 2017.

The State Historical Museum houses one of the most significant museum collections of watercolors and drawings with views of Old Moscow of the XVIII-XX centuries. Famous Moscow patrons and collectors A. P Bakhrushin and P. I. Shchukin bequeathed their personal collections to the Historical Museum. In 1926, the Museum of Old Moscow hosted the first exhibition of a unique collection of watercolors - "Moscow in the old pictures", in the same year the museum was disbanded, and its richest visual materials entered the Historical Museum.

In the following decades, the collection has been relentlessly replenished, and now it includes works of almost all well-known and little known masters of the city landscape - from the creator of the genre F.Y. Alekseev to A. M. Vasnetsov.

The contribution to the history of the creation of the fine chronicles of Old Moscow was made by foreign artists who lived and worked in Russia, as well as St. Petersburg painters, graduates of the Academy of Arts, who often painted views of Moscow on the orders of the Imperial Court.

The main feature of the collection of the Historical Museum is the predominance of works by Moscow artists, representatives of the Moscow art school, which already formed by the middle of the XIX century on the basis of three Moscow art schools: the Palace Architectural School; School of painting and sculpture (since 1866 and architecture); School of Drawing, which was organized by Count S. A. Stroganov in 1825 (later Stroganov School of Technical Drawing).

Performed by the pupils of these schools, Moscow's views are distinguished by a special warmth and spontaneity that convey the peculiar atmosphere of the life of the ancient city, organically combining the metropolitan magnificence with the modest charm of the province, as well as the way of life and customs of its inhabitants.

A graphic collection of Old Moscow views is presented to visitors of the Historical Museum for the first time since 1926.