The Hermitage guide

The Department of the Art and Culture of the Peoples of the East

The Department of the Art and Culture of the Peoples of the East was organized in 1920, after the October Revolution of 1917, with the active participation of three outstanding Russian Orientalists Nikolai Marr, Sergei Oldenburg and Vasily Barthold. Their pupil Iosif Orbeli became the first Head of the Department. Today the Department has one of the world’s most important collections of Oriental art.

Interest in Eastern artefacts arose in Russia long ago; the first Russian museum, Peter the Great’s Kunstkammer (Cabinet of Curios), housed a large number of Oriental coins, and a series of prominent works of art from Graeco-Bactria, Syria and Achaemenid Persia. Catherine II had a collection of glyptics that included engraved gems from Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Parthia, Sassanian Iran, Byzantium, and China. Apparently in the 1770s, Admiral Grigory Spiridov brought from the Archipelago a Byzantine marble slab depicting circus scenes, and some relics of classical antiquity. Also around this time Sassanian and Byzantine silver vessels were found at Sludka, a village in Perm province. All these items later formed the basis of the Hermitage Oriental collections.

Interest in Egyptology was aroused in Russia, as in many other European countries, at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1826—27 the Academy of Sciences acquired the collection of the Milan merchant Francisco Castiglione (Egyptian sculptures, wooden sarcophagi and objects of the applied arts). The granite sarcophagi of Queen Nechtbasteteru and her son Aahmes, a military chief; the group sculpture of Amenemheb, the governor of Thebes, with his wife and mother; and the statue of the goddess Sekhmet, were also acquired at this time.

In the mid-nineteenth century, Oriental artefacts began to arrive from archaeological excavations. Among these accessions were the golden bowl and ladle, uncovered during Alexander Tereshchenko’s excavation in the 1840s of the town of Sarai-Berke (near present-day Volgograd). A large number of objects characterizing Sarai-Berke’s daily life and handicrafts were presented to the Museum by the Academy of Sciences in the 1860s. Also around the middle of the past century the Hermitage acquired its first Assyrian monuments: large bas reliefs found during Austen-Henry Layard’s excavations at Nimrud and Place’s at Khorsabad, and painted vessels from Susa, excavated by Jean-Jacques de Morgan and Toscanio. It was at this time, too, that the so-called Siberian Collection of Peter the Great, which contained numerous works by Eastern craftsmen, was placed in the Museum. In 1885 the very rich collection of Oriental weaponry previously kept in the Arsenal at Tsarskoye Selo was transferred to the Hermitage; and in 1885 came the Basilewsky collection, comprising many Byzantine works of art (ivories and bronzes, enamels, mosaic icons, and a marble sarcophagus) and objects of Islamic art (a lustred vase, with a game of polo, glass lamps painted in coloured enamels and gold, bronze vessels with inlaid decoration, and a huge silver triptych, dated 1288; this last item, a unique example of its type, belonged to Cilician king Hetum II).

Vladimir Bock, Keeper of the Medieval and Renaissance Department, undertook two expeditions to Egypt in 1888—89 and in 1897—98. He was one of the first scholars to become interested in relics from the Coptic and Arabian periods. Bock purchased a large number of valuable articles and obtained still more by excavating necropoli; he returned to the Hermitage with an enormous collection of patterned textiles, sculptures, glass, leather, pottery, bronze, ivory, and bone objects.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries local interest in archaeology increased in many areas of the country, and many new finds came into the Museum’s collections. Some barrows at the Belorechensky village and burials in the North Caucasus were excavated by Nikolai Veselovsky, and the site of the ancient hill-town of Afrasiab was explored by Vasily Barthold. At the end of the nineteenth century a pair of carved wooden doors from the Gur-Emir mausoleum at Samarkand (Tamerlane’s tomb), joined the Museum’s collection, and in 1910—11, the treasure of the last Khans of Khiva, containing goldwork and jewellery. The excavations of Marr at Garni and Ani and the acquisitions made by Yakov Smirnov at Ashnak (Armenia), the excavations of F. Bayern at Mtskheta and Samtavro (Georgia), and of V. Resler in Azerbaijan, all enriched the Museum’s holdings. The collections of V. Dolbeznev and К. Olshevsky, which entered the Department at the end of the nineteenth century, contained materials from the burial grounds of Kamunta, Kumbulta and Chmi (North Caucasus), dating mainly from the third to the eighth century. Thanks to the tireless energy of Smirnov the Hermitage acquired a number of important pieces of Sassanian silver.

Thus, by 1917 the Hermitage could boast of a fairly large Oriental collection numbering about 10,000 items. However, no special Oriental department existed at that time, and the objects were scattered among different exhibitions. It was only after the Great October Revolution, which had proclaimed national equality as one of the basic principles of the new society, that conditions were created for the formation of the Oriental Department in the Hermitage. In 1921, within a year of its foundation, the Section of Islamic East was reorganized into that of the Caucasus, Iran and Central Asia. The year 1922 saw the opening of the first exhibition of Sassanian antiquities, a landmark in the Hermitage’s Oriental studies.

In 1925 the very rich collection of objects of applied art from the Museum of the Stieglitz School in Leningrad was transferred to the Hermitage. This collection included examples of Byzantine art and a magnificent selection of Central Asian, Iranian and Turkish carpets, textiles, glazed tiles, ceramics and bronzes. These articles formed the basis of a number of sections within the Department, notably that of the Far East. In 1934 a collection of articles of Buddhist art, fragments of temple murals and loess sculptures, that had been gathered by Oldenburg’s expeditions to the northern oases of Sinkiang in 1909— 10 and 1914—15, came to the Hermitage from the Academy of Sciences’ Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. In 1933 the Hermitage received from the Ethnography Department of the Russian Museum the finds of two expeditions (1908 and 1926) of the famous Russian explorer Piotr Kozlov — the man who conducted the excavations of Khara-Khoto — and in 1934, the world-famous relics discovered by him in 1924—25 in the Hunnish barrows in the Noin-Ula Mountains (Mongolian Peoples’ Republic). About the same time the Hermitage bought the rich collection of terra-cottas, ossuaries and glyptics, formed by Boris Kastalsky, a student of local lore. In 1931 many items, albeit far from all, once in the Russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople, were returned to the Soviet Union. Among these was a good selection of Palmyrene reliefs and a rich collection of Byzantine lead seals. In 1930 and 1934 a number of Byzantine and Greek icons, some collected by the outstanding Russian scholar Nikolai Likhachov and the others probably by the expedition of P. Sevastyanov, were transferred from the Russian Museum to the Hermitage. It is also largely due to Likhachov’s work that the Hermitage has such a rich assortment of cuneiform tablets, Egyptian papyri, ancient Oriental glyptics as well as palaeographic and epigraphic materials of later date. The Section of the Ancient Orient was enlarged by the inclusion of the collection of the famous Egyptologist Boris Turayev and numerous items from the collection of Alexander Bobrinsky who for many years was Chairman of the Archaeological Commission.

The Hermitage sent out special expeditions with the aim of comprehensively studying the culture of Eastern peoples. Valuable artefacts were acquired at the North Daghestan village of Kubachi. This village is a site which has remained peculiarly intact and preserved unique textiles, ceramics and bronzes made by craftsmen in the Transcaucasia, Iran and Egypt. From the same site came bronze cauldrons and stone slabs with relief decoration, of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and of more recent date. Since the middle of the 1920s the Hermitage collection have been enriched with scientifically documented materials from archaeological excavations in Central Asia, the Transcaucasia, and other regions.

The Department’s increasing scientific activity kept up with the continued growth of its collections. Young scientists came to work there alongside such outstanding Orientalists as Vasily Struve, Natalia Flittner, Ernst Kwerfeldt, Vasily Alexeyev, Nikolai Nevsky, and Camilla Trever. By the end of the 1930s, the progress in Soviet Oriental studies necessitated a fundamental revision of the existing exhibitions, with the materials traditionally organized in three main sections: the Ancient Orient, the Medieval Near and Middle East, and the Far East.

This scheme, however, did not reflect clearly enough the actual historical development of the cultures of these different countries and peoples. The first exhibition of a new type, The Culture and Art of the Peoples of Central Asia, was held in 1940. Archaeological activity was also expanding, highlighted by the successful excavation of Karmir-Blur (near Erevan) begun in 1939 under the direction of Boris Piotrovsky, and the excavations at Paikend (Central Asia) started in 1939 by Alexander Yakubovsky and Vladimir Kesayev. Scientific work was continued during the Great Patriotic War of 1941—45, in besieged Leningrad as well as in evacuation areas.

Today the research and exhibition work of the Department is divided between four sections: the Ancient Orient, the Near and Middle East and the Byzantine Empire, India and the Far East, and the Caucasus and Central Asia.

The Section of the Ancient Orient houses cultural and artistic material from Ancient Egypt (including the Ptolemaic, Roman and Coptic periods), and from Babylonia, the Palmyra, Assyria and the neighbouring countries.

Although the Hermitage does not possess equally representative collections from all the periods of Ancient Egyptian history, the Egyptian section nevertheless gives a sufficiently clear picture of the artistic and cultural development of this great ancient civilization; and there are first-class exhibits from almost every epoch. The main bulk of the Egyptian collection is composed of minor sculpture, objects of artistic craftsmanship, and stelae. The literary papyri The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, The Prophecy of Neferti and The Instructions of the Pharaoh Akhtoy III to His Son Merikare are world famous. The statue of Amenemhet III, a wooden figurine of a youth, the statuette of Pharaoh Takharka, a stele and vase of Pharaoh Haremheb, are all worth mentioning. Among the small number of objects from the Ptolemaic period there is an interesting statue of Arsinoë III. The pride of the Hermitage’s Egyptian section is its collection of Coptic textiles, which is one of the best in the world.

Almost all the major ancient civilizations of the Near East are represented in the Hermitage. The most important items here are the cuneiform tablets from 3,000—1,000 B.C.: the oldest Sumerian tablet, and a collection of Hittite cuneiform texts, economic, historical, judicial, literary, mathematical, and also some glossaries; there are also some cuneiform writings from the Seleucid period. The collection contains seal amulets from Mesopotamia, dating from 4,000—3,000 B.C., and carved Assyrian stones. Included in the small number of Achaemenid artefacts is an inscribed weight used for weighing metal. The world-famous bilingual Palmyrene Tariff, discovered by the Russian traveller S. Abamelek-Lazarev, has been part of the Hermitage collection since 1902. The first study of the Near Eastern collections was carried out by Vladimir Golenishchev and Mikhail Nikolsky.

The Section of the Near and Middle East and Byzantium contains Byzantine antiquities of outstanding artistic merit: the illustrious collection of sixth- and seventh-century silver vessels; a rich assortment of carved ivories: diptychs, pyxides and caskets; cloisonné enamels; and one of the world’s best collections of twelfth- to fifteenth-century icons (including mosaic). The constantly increasing archaeological collection from Chersonesus is also of great interest. These materials help in tracing certain essential aspects of the relations which linked Byzantium with Balkan Slavs and Oriental countries.

The collection of artefacts from the Near and Middle East is world famous. The Iranian material is particularly complete; the Museum owns the world’s largest collection of Sassanian silver (over 50 pieces of Sassanian origin and 60 showing Sassanian influence) and carved stones (over 900). These silver objects, like the Byzantine ones mentioned above, have mainly been recovered from hoards in the Urals region.

Worthy of attention among the twelfth- to fifteenth-century Persian items are the ceramics: the lustred vase depicting a game of polo, a cup painted in enamels in the Minai technique, and a small stand glazed in lustre. There are also rich and varied collections of bronzes (especially a group of figured bronze vessels) and tiles. Iranian culture and art from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries are mainly represented by handicrafts; these include carpets made in Isfahan, Jushahan, Herat and Tabriz; silks, brocades and velvets, and ceramics with carved or engraved patterns, glazed in lustre or painted in cobalt, from Isfahan, Kerman, Yezd, and Kashan; and a rich collection of Iranian ornamental weapons. The section possesses a small but valuable collection of miniatures, among them originals of the prominent seventeenth-century artist Riza-i-Abbasi.

The collection of articles from Islamic Egypt occupies an important place among the Department’s items illustrating Arabian art and culture. Most of these materials were amassed by Bock and include textiles, ceramics, wood carvings, bronzes which are often inlaid with gold, silver or copper, and glass lamps decorated with enamels and gold. Two magnificent Fatimid rock crystal vessels deserve particular attention. The collection also contains papyri of the Islamic period and other epigraphic materials in Arabic, along with bronzes manufactured in Syria and Iraq (especially in Mosul), a famous dish decorated with pictures of Nestorian saints, found in Kashgar, and a number of well-preserved Syrian painted glass vessels from barrows in the North Caucasian and Kuban regions.

The Turkish art of the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries is represented by works of artistic craftsmanship. The collection of ceramics includes examples from several centres — Damascus, Iznik, and Kütahya; of particular interest is the tiled fireplace decoration made at Iznik in the seventeenth century and brought to Russia from Cairo. There is an exceptionally good assortment of Turkish textiles, carpets, bronzes, and ornamental weapons.

Outstanding among the collections of the Indian and Far Eastern section are the silk fabrics and embroidery of the first century B.C., found at Noin-Ula in Mongolia, and the murals and sculptures of the sixth to tenth centuries, brought by Oldenburg’s expedition from the Monastery of the Thousand Buddhas, near Tun-huang. Paper money and carved boards for the printing of books and woodcuts, and a large number of Buddhist paintings on canvas, paper and silk of the Tibeto-Tangutan and Chinese schools, are some of the most remarkable finds from the excavations of the Tanguto-Mongolian town of Etzina, or Khara-Khoto in the Gobi Desert.

The ruins of this town were discovered and explored by the famous Russian traveller Piotr Kozlov. The religious painting Buddha Amida Meeting the Souls of Righteous Men should also be mentioned, along with paintings of the deities of the celestial bodies, the portrait of an official and the woodcut The Four Famous Beauties. The materials from Sinkiang constitute a special group; these are mainly paintings and sculptures from cave temples. The collections from Khotan are particularly interesting and include early first millennium A.D. terracottas and vessels of high artistic quality. The fragments of wall paintings and sculptures from the Kuça Oasis date from later periods, the fifth to seventh, and the ninth and tenth centuries; there are also materials from Karasahr and the Turfan Oasis which flourished from the ninth to eleventh centuries. Credit for the collecting, exhibiting and publishing of all these materials should go to Academician Oldenburg.

Chinese art is represented in the Hermitage by porcelains, lacquers, enamels, and articles in carved stone. A significant part of the collection comes from eighteenth-century imperial Russian palaces, including china from the private factories of Chingtehchen and china made for export to Western Europe. A large screen of Coromandel lacquer also came from one of the royal palaces. Painting is not so well represented, but the Hermitage does have some works from the twelfth to eighteenth centuries, and also pictures of the early twentieth-century artists Chi’i Pai-shih and Hsii Pei-hung. Several years ago Academician Vasily Alexeyev, the well-known sinologist, donated to the Museum his rich collection of popular prints.

The collections of Indian artefacts — textiles, metalwork, bone, ivory, and wooden articles from the Mogul Age, miniatures of the Mogul school, and ornamental weapons — was enlarged in 1957 with the addition of modern paintings. In the 1970s the Indian Government presented to the Hermitage several works of artistic craftsmanship.

The collection of objects of Japanese culture and art includes a variety of handicraft articles dating from the seventeenth century to the present day, and also some coloured woodblock prints from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, among them works by Suzuki Harunobu, Kitagawa Utamaro and Katsushika Hokusai. Recently a large number of modern works in the applied arts have significantly enriched this collection. The Mongolian collections form part of the Far Eastern section. They consist mainly of archaeological finds from the Noin-Ula burial mounds, relics coming from other regions of Mongolia and from the Buriat Republic, Ukhtomsky’s large collection of painted and sculpturesque Lamaistic icons from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, and objects from Karakorum found during Sergei Kiseliov’s excavations.

The earliest artefacts in the Central Asian section characterize the way of life of ancient farmers and cattle-breeders who inhabited the territory of South Turkmenistan in the fourth millennium B.C. The Semirechye altar (c. 1,500—1,000 B.C.), the famous Airtam frieze (first century A.D.), materials from Kwarasm (especially sculptures of the third and fourth centuries), fragments of murals and loess sculptures (seventh and eighth centuries) from Pianjikent, and paintings and stucco carvings from the palace at Varakhsha (seventh and eighth centuries) are all of great interest.

Glazed ceramics from Afrasiab, unglazed ceramics from Munchak-Tepe and tiles from Afrasiab and Uzgent are all distinguished by their high quality. Among the bronzes the kalamdan (case for writing implements) dated 1148 is worthy of note. Artefacts from Sarai-Berke constitute a special group, characterizing the town’s daily life, its handicrafts and its relations with other countries. Mosaic tiles and other ceramic items found there were obviously produced by Central Asian craftsmen, as was the exceptionally beautiful blue earthenware pot, whose fine decorations still show traces of gilding.

There are tiles from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries which at one time ornamented buildings in Samarkand. Other exhibits from this period include a huge bronze cauldron from the Mosque of Khwaja Ahmad Yasevi near Turkestan, which was made on Tamerlane’s orders in 1399; candlesticks inlaid with silver and gold; and a pair of intricately carved wooden doors with traces of incrustation in ivory, mother-of-pearl and silver. Illuminated manuscripts from the Herat school also deserve a mention, especially The Golden Chain by Jami and Khamsa by Nizami. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are represented by Turkmenian rugs, textiles, ornamental weapons, jewellery, and ceramics.

The collections of the Caucasus section have become noticeably larger in recent decades. The items span a vast historical period from the decay of the primitive communal system in the eleventh and tenth centuries B.C. to the flourishing of the medieval civilizations (with the inclusion of some groups of objects dating from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries). The materials from the Karabakh Mountain area are extremely interesting, notably the golden glove from Archadzor, and a Khodjaly bead with the name of the Assyrian king Adad-nirari II (?) (911—890 B.C.). Many deservedly famous pieces come from the site of Karmir-Blur (Teishebaini) near Erevan, where excavations were carried out under the direction of Academician Boris Piotrovsky. By the middle of the last century the Hermitage already held examples of Urartian art which were later supplemented by the finds of Marr’s and Orbeli’s expedition to Toprak-kala on Lake Van. However, a comprehensive study of Urartian civilization, especially on its northern fringes, became possible only after many years of extensive excavations at Karmir-Blur.

The finds in the villages of Ashnak (Armenia) and Bori (Western Georgia) are the most significant of all the materials from a later period; for example, inlaid gold jewellery from the first to the third century and silver objects — local and imported (including a dish with the picture of a horse before the altar). Among the chance finds from the Caucasus are remarkable articles dating from the last centuries B.C. and the first centuries A.D.: a silver dish of Roman origin depicting a Nereid, a unique goblet of ruby glass in a silver mounting, a doublewalled glass bowl, and a silver rhyton shaped as a bull’s head. The excavation of the burial grounds at Kamunta, Kumbulta and Chmi (North Caucasus) yielded rich archaeological materials. The relatively well-preserved textiles are of great interest; these were either locally made or came from Iran or the Byzantine Empire. Excellent textiles of local work or imported from Sogdiana, Byzantium or Iran were found in the burial ground in the gorge of Moshchevaya Balka in the Kuban area; the examples include a kaftan of the late eighth or early ninth century, made of Iranian silk and decorated with pictures of the Senmurv — a fantastic creature, half bird, half beast. Bronze vessels form a special group; there are dishes, jugs, aquamanilia, and incense burners from the mountain villages of Daghestan, mainly from Kubachi.

The collection of materials which illustrate the mature medieval cultures in present-day Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan is, infortunately, incomplete. Particularly notable among objects of Georgian provenance are a medallion of St George executed in the technique of cloisonné enamel, fragments of silver icon frames from the eleventh to sixteenth centuries, including two plaques by the eleventh-century master craftsman Ivaneh Monisadzeh, and details of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century carved architectural decorations, a recent gift to the Hermitage from the Georgian SSR Museum of Arts. Among relics of Armenian origin there are fragments of fresco paintings from the Bakhtageki church at Ani (thirteenth century); a bell, found near Poti, and some tenth- to thirteenth-century ceramics and fragments of stucco decorations from the ninth or tenth and twelfth or thirteenth centuries, yielded by the excavations at Ani, Anberd and Dvin, and recently donated to the Hermitage by the History Museum of Armenia. The culture and arts of the peoples living in the territory of Azerbaijan are illustrated by tiles of Iranian work from Pir Hussein Revanan’s tomb at Khanakah (west of Baku), ceramics from the ninth to thirteenth centuries, and bas-reliefs and bronze cauldrons from medieval Daghestan (again mainly from the Kubachi village).

A. Bank, V. Lukonin

55

Statue of Pharaoh Amenemhet III

Black granite. Egypt. 1900—1800 B.C.

56

Decoration for a tunic with a representation of the Goddess Gaea

Fabric. Coptic Egypt. 4th century

57

Relief with archers

Alabaster. Assyria. 8th century

58

Eagle-shaped water-carrier

Bronze. Persia. 11th century

59

Neck ornament

Gold. Eastern Persia. 4th century B.C.

60

Diptych representing circus scenes

Ivory. Byzantium. 5th century

61

Icon of St Gregory the Thaumaturgist

Byzantium. 12th century

62

Airtam frieze

Marl limestone. Central Asia. 2nd century

63

Patterned fabric

Persia. 16th century

64

Painted faience bowl

Persia. 12th century

65

Bronze figure of a winged deity

Urartu. 7th century

66

Sassanian silver dish with a representation of King Shapur II hunting

Persia. 4th century

67

Glass lamp

Syria. 14th century

68

Painted faience jug

Turkey, Iznik. 16th century

69

Silver phalar (decoration of a horse harness)

Graeco-Bactria (?). 3rd century B.C.

70

A Youth and a Girl on Horseback. Fresco

Central Asia, Pianjikent. 8th century

71

Head of a Buddhist monk

Unbaked clay. Central Asia. Ajin-Tepe Monastery. 8th century

72

Clay figurines: Bodhisattva and monk

China. 7th century

73

Crystal vessel

Egypt. 10th century

74

Porcelain pitcher

China. 14th century

75

Deity of the Moon

Paper, mineral colours. Mongolia, Khara-Khoto. 9th century

76

Ando Hiroshige. 1797—1858. Japan

Landscape

77

Piled rug

Persia, Kashan. Second half of the 19th century

78

Bronze cauldron from the Mosque of Khwaja Ahmad Yasevi

Town of Turkestan. 14th century

79

Silver dish representing a Nereid riding a hippocampus

Rome. 2nd century

80

Lacquered box

Painted by Muhammad Ali. Persia. 18th century

81

Icon of Jama, Master of Hell

Tibet, Lamaian school. 19th century

82

Buddha Amida Meeting the Souls of Righteous Men

Silk, mineral colours. Mongolia, Khara-Khoto 9th century

83

Steel dagger

The Caucasus. 19th century

84

Ladies on the Terrace

Miniature on paper. India. Lamaian school. 18th century