Programme
Part 1: The museum's architecture
Part 2: Highlights of the exhibits
Part 3: Russia in the age of Peter the Great
Part 4: Decorative arts of Italy, France and England
Part 5: Mesopotamia to Ancient China
Part 6: Ancient Egypt
Part 7: The vast sculpture collection
Part 8: The Classical world Of Greece and Rome
Part 9: The Middle Ages
Part 10: The early Italian Renaissance
Part 11: Raphael, Da Vinci and the Italian High Renaissance
Part 12: The Netherlands
Part 13: Rubens, van Dyk and the 17th Century Flemish Painters
Part 14: Rembrandt and the 17th-Century Dutch Masters
Part 15: Velasquez, El Greco, Goya and the Spanish Masters
Part 16: The French Classical style of the 17th and 18th centuries
Part 17: The Road to Impressionism: 19th-Century France
Part 18: Modernism: Matisse, Picassso and other 20th-Century painters


Think of Russia and you invariably envisage snow, vodka and rulers with improbable titles Catherine the Great and Ivan the Terrible to name but two but St Petersburg is a city full of surprises. Not least of these is the Hermitage Museum, which occupies six magnificent buildings and is home to more than three million masterpieces of painting, sculpture, jewellery, metalwork, costume and porcelain from every major school of art.

Filled with ornately-crafted treasures, The Hermitage dates from 1754 and was founded to allow public access to the art collections of Russia's tsars. The building itself was devastated by shelling during World War II, but happily the Russian intelligentsia had long since mobilised to evacuate the exhibits.

This fascinating 18-part series examines a small but representative fraction of the museum's pieces, including works from Ancient Egypt, medieval Russia and Classical Greece to Impressionism and Modernism, and represents a revealing journey through this vast collection for art historians and novices alike.