Mikhailovsky Castle Collections

Since it became part of the Russian Museum in 1994, the Mikhailovsky Castle has become home to an increasing number of permanent collections, mostly containing art of the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

As restoration work on the castle nears completion, the space is increasingly used to house sculpture. The main collection is the Sculpture Open Fund, which displays hundreds of works by Russian sculptors from the 18^th to the 20^th centuries. Recently enriched with the addition of over one hundred works from the early 20^th century, the exhibition has a well organized computer guides, and highlights include a large collection of elegant works by Count Paolo Trubetskoy.

Elsewhere in the castle is the Foreign Artists in Russia collection, which gathers together the work of the many artists, many of whom were employed by the Imperial court, who came to St. Petersburg in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

While some of the artists featured had already built a reputation in their native countries - such as the English portrait-painter, George Dawe, and Elizabeth-Louise Vigee-Le Brun, the most famous female artist of the 18^th century, who fled to Russia after the French Revolution - many came to Russia at a young age and stayed for good, attracted and held by the substantial commissions offered by the Russian aristocracy, amongst whom it was considered more modish to be painted by Western European artists.