Hermitage Opens: Russian Art Goes Public

Tsar Nicholas I opened the Hermitage Museum to the public in 1852, granting ordinary Russians access to a collection that had been the exclusive preserve of the imperial family for nearly a century. Catherine the Great had begun the collection in 1764 by purchasing 225 paintings from a Berlin merchant, and subsequent emperors added obsessively until the Winter Palace and its adjoining buildings housed one of the world's most extraordinary accumulations of art. The public museum occupied a separate building to keep commoners away from the royal residence. Visitors were required to wear formal attire, a rule that effectively limited access to the educated classes. Despite these restrictions, the opening represented a radical shift in the idea that great art belonged to the people rather than the monarch. The Hermitage today holds over three million items across six buildings, and a single person spending one minute at each exhibit would need eleven years to see everything.