Beatrix and Medvedev to open new Hermitage Amsterdam
14 Jun 2009
Dutch Queen and Russian President to open new Hermitage Amsterdam museum this June.
Hermitage Amsterdam; www.marcuskoppen.com
Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and the President of the Russian Federation, Mr. Dmitry Medvedev, will attend the opening celebrations of the Hermitage Amsterdam museum on the evening of Friday, June 19.
The official celebration is one day prior to the public opening of the museum on June 20, 2009. Other members of the Dutch Royal family expected to attend include Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Maxima.
The Hermitage Amsterdam opens with the dazzling exhibition, ‘At the Russian Court: Palace and Protocol in the 19th Century.’ This inaugural exhibition promises to be one of the most lavish ever presented in Europe, and one of the largest.
With more than 1,800 objects on loan from the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, the exhibition will fill Hermitage Amsterdam from 20 June 2009 to 31 January 2010, recreating life at the Russian court during the nineteenth century: a period that spanned the reigns of six tsars, from the little-known Paul I, son of Catherine the Great, to the tragic Nicholas II, the last tsar of Russia. On display are amongst others the Romanov throne, jewelry by Fabergé, gala dresses and the last tsarina’s grand piano.
The Hermitage Amsterdam is the first foreign branch of the magnificent Russian State Museum Hermitage, St. Petersburg. The Hermitage Amsterdam will organize temporary exhibitions chosen from the collections of the Hermitage and other Russian museums.
The museum is housed in the monumental 17th-century building Amstelhof, a historic building off the Amstel River in Amsterdam which has undergone nearly $50 million in renovations in preparation of the opening of the museum. The Hermitage Amsterdam’s 9,000 m2 (nearly 96,000 square feet) consists of two large galleries, cabinets, an old chapel, regents’ rooms and an enclosed garden. The building also contains a study centre, a restaurant, shops and the Hermitage for Children center.
For the Russian court exhibition one entire exhibition wing of Hermitage Amsterdam will be devoted to the elaborate protocol of the nineteenth-century Russian court, with its public demonstrations of power and opulence. The other wing will tell the story of the grandiose dinners, parties and themed balls hosted by the tsars in the Hermitage. Among the objects that will bring these subjects to life will be hundreds of exceptionally rich ball gowns and other costumes, sumptuous court paintings by Franz Xaver Winterhalter and Ilya Repin, extraordinary items of furniture including the famous Romanov throne, impressive pieces of jewellery by makers such as Fabergé, vast and valuable dinner services and the last tsarina’s own grand piano.