The monuments of Greek art, discovered in the south of Russia, later entered the vast imperial museum of Petersburg, the Hermitage. The appearance of Greek antiquities added a new dimension to the museum, which took on an encyclopedic and universal character. Russia acquired its own antiquity, its own ancient history.

And when Emperor Nicholas I wanted to erect a new special building for the museum, architect Leo von Klenze, who loved the Greece of classical antiquity, built the New Hermitage in a neo-Greek style. In the Gallery of the History of Ancient Painting, he placed scenes that tell of the great painters and the life of ancient Greece.

This is yet another, new assimilation of Greek aesthetics and traditions, which typologically resembled Greco-Scythian art. The Hermitage was founded by Catherine the Great as a dynamically developing and continuously expanding museum. It was constantly complemented by the acquisition of new collections.

The collections of ancient Greek art also grew. Not only archaeology, but also purchases enriched our museum with wonderful vessels and famous items of jewelry and elegant everyday use items. The aesthetics of Russian painters and art lovers were cultivated based on the wonderful examples of art from classical Greece and the monuments that were created under the influence of those examples.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]