The Russian Museum

 Melissa and I were able to visit the Russian Museum to study the art of Russian Miniature Painting.  The Russian Museum is one of the largest depositories of Russian fine art and it was established in 1895.  The main building of the museum is called the Mikhallovsky Palace and was built to be a residence in 1819.  We were overwhelmed with the size and opulence of the palace.







We have found that almost none of the buildings in St. Petersburg have elevators.  We are getting used to climbing 5-6 flights of stairs to get to our destination!

The Russian Museum has a large collection of icon paintings.  These were very interesting to us because the Palekh style of miniature painting has a long history of icon painting.  

 The Russian Museum has a great collection of Palekh artwork.  We felt very lucky to see pieces of such a high caliber.  We were able to view Ivan Golikov's work.  Golikov is probably the most famous of the Palekh artists.  It is amazing to see all of the detail that the artists can put into such a small space!  We took a photo with Melissa's hand so that you would be able to actually see the scale of the boxes.  Pretty small!!!