State Hermitage Museum
Saint Petersburg, Russia
The State Hermitage Museum is one of the largest and oldest art and cultural museums in the world, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It was founded in 1764 when the Empress Catherine the Great acquired a major collection of paintings, and it has been open to the public since 1852.
The museum occupies a complex of buildings along the Palace Embankment, centred on the Winter Palace, the former principal residence of the Russian emperors. Its holdings span from antiquity to the present and number in the millions of items, with celebrated collections of European painting including works by Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, and the French Impressionists.