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This
article focuses on the exhibition history of collections of the Christian
Antiquities Section (1898—1914), the Antiquarium
(1914—1918), the Old Russian Art Section (1918—1925) and the First Section of
the Art Department
of the Russian Museum (1925—1928), where items of
civil and religious heritage of Old Rus' were
exhibited to public. Artifacts and icons of Byzantine origin held a special
of place among the exhibits. By the time of inauguration of the Russian Museum of His Imperial Majesty
Alexander III, which took place in March 1898, the exhibitors realized that
the entire array of items should be allocated among the rooms not just
chronologically, but also taking into account the aspects of their creation
and provenance. Thus, objects of Byzantine origin were considered as part of
Christian culture and a preliminary stage of ancient Russian art. In 1928,
for the first time, Byzantine art appeared as an independent phenomenon and
one of the halls of the first floor of the Russian Museum
was called the “Byzantine Room”. The importance of this unique exhibition is
evidenced by the surviving archive photos. Such an exhibition would be
impossible nowadays for a number of reasons, including the fact that the Russian Museum has lost its Byzantine
collection. In the 1930-s, Italo-Greek and
Byzantine icons were transferred from the Russian Museum
to the State Hermitage, where some of them are exhibited permanently.
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Key words: Byzantine art exhibition,
the Russian Museum
of His Imperial Majesty Alexander III,
Christian Antiquities Section, the Antiquarium,
A.P. Smirnov, L.A. Matsulevich.
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