Red-figured lekanis: wedding preparations

In order to display the greatest possible number of works of art on a larger total exhibition area, the management decided to open branches abroad.

Ernst Veen, the director of the Nieuwe Kerk (exhibition location in a church), suggested that Amsterdam would be the ideal location for an establishment of the Russian museum given the historical links between the two cities over the past 300 years.

In 2003 both countries celebrated the long bond between the two countries born of Peter the Great's visit to the Netherlands in 1698.

In many ways Amsterdam Hermitage is a kind of embassy for the St Petersburg museum in Western Europe. It has been preceded by the two smaller Hermitage representative facilities in London and in Las Vegas, which opened in 2000 and in 2001 respectively.

On 28 February the first phase of Amsterdam Hermitage opened to the public on the Nieuwe Herengracht, next to Waterlooplein. It is well worth of visit.

But do not visit the museum during the holiday periods and especially not on Tuesday. It was loaded with children and elderly people. Small temporary exhibitions drawn from the collection of the St. Petersburg museum are presented in six galleries twice a year.

Each exhibition will be on view for over five months. By the end of 2007 the entire museum building will be in use, with a total floor space of over 4,000 m².

The inaugural exhibition is called Greek Gold. With the Greek Olympic year of 2004 in mind, this is of course well chosen. It runs to 31 July. 

Earring (single) with disc and boat-shaped pendant

There are phenomenal examples of the goldsmith's art in the form of bracelets, earrings, necklaces and wreaths of a very high quality. The designs are extraordinarily subtle and sometimes very realistic.

The tiniest details are worked in gold. A very good example of such a masterpiece is a bracelet with lion figures. The manes are perfectly elaborated. But if you look closer you see that the figures are actually lionesses. The goldsmith probably didn't know how a lioness looked like and created a lion with nipples.

But this little lack of knowledge (or maybe he did it on purpose?) is compensated by the beautiful things created. The Greek craftsmen were able to use fairly pure gold, which was much softer but also more flexible than modern alloys. This meant that even with his rather crude tools the goldsmith could produce very delicate work.

Some of the pieces are richly decorated by the so-called micro technique, with ornaments of thin gold threads and minuscule gold balls.

You get to view the jewellery through a magnifying glass and it's very hard to imagine how the Greek goldsmiths made their miniature sculptures by the naked eye alone.

Especially when you keep in mind that magnifying glasses and jeweller's loupes are inventions, at least that's what I thought, of much later times. It's a pity that they don't pay attention to such things worth knowing.

The fact is that the jewellery is so overwhelming, it makes you very greedy. During my visit I heard a lot of oh's and wow's from the female public and it makes you want to run to the most exclusive jewellery shop in Amsterdam and buy the whole selection.

Later in 2004 the Hermitage Amsterdam will feature an exhibition on the life and the collections of the last Tsar and Tsarina, Nicholas and Alexandra, followed in 2005 by an exhibition on Venetian painting with masterpieces by Tintoretto, Guardi, Canaletto and Tiepolo.

Some critics say that the Hermitage Amsterdam does not meet a cultural need; they say that it's a marketing concept and Amsterdam doesn't need a new museum. It costs too much money and the tourists already have their Van Gogh, Vermeer and Rembrandt somewhere else.

But one visit to the new museum is enough to prove to even the most ardent critic that the Hermitage is a great asset. And especially in Amsterdam, you can't have enough of these 'high culture' initiatives.

Hermitage Amsterdam
Nieuwe Herengracht 14
Daily from 10 am to 5 pm

April 2004

[Copyright Expatica 2004]

Subject: Dutch art + Hermitage Amsterdam