State Hermitage Museum

One of the world's largest and finest museums of art, in St Petersburg, Russia. Founded by Russian empress Catherine the Great in 1764 and housed in some of St Petersburg's grandest buildings, the Hermitage collection now numbers over 3 million items, presenting the development of world culture and art from the Stone Age to the present day.

The first purchase was a collection of 225 paintings, mainly Dutch and Flemish, originally assembled by Berlin silk and porcelain merchant Johann Gotzkowski for Frederick the Great of Prussia. Part of the collection of the Moscow Museum of Modern Western Art is now included in the Hermitage. The museum's main building is the Winter Palace, the former residence of Russian tsars.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the museum opened outposts in Europe and the USA, for example the Hermitage Rooms in Somerset House, London, England (2000); the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, Las Vegas, Nevada (2001), and the Hermitage Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2004).