EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

© State Hermitage Museum, St.Petersburg, 2016 T he State Hermitage is one of the greatest art museums in the world. Its collections numbering about 3 000 000 items feature the art and culture of Antiquity, Western Europe, Oriental countries and Russia. The history of the Hermitage as a museum collection is traditionally held to have begun in 1764 when Catherine II bought a large number of Western European paintings. For more than two centuries the collection kept growing. The Hermitage is a home to 17 000 paintings and about 620 000 drawings and prints, 12 000 sculptures and 350 000 works of applied art, 760 000 ar- chaeological exhibits and more than 1 000 000 coins and medals.