State Tretyakov Gallery

About museum

The State Tretyakov Gallery is one of the largest art museums in the world. In 1851 the Moscow merchant Pavel Tretyakov bought a building on Lavrushinsky Lane and five years later established a museum of the Russian art school there. He added works by artists such as Nikolai Shilder, Vasily Khudyakov, Vasily Perov, Lev Lagorio, Mikhail Klodt, Karl Bryullov, and others to the collection. The patron began his collecting with works by artists such as Vasily Surikov, Ilya Repin, Viktor Vasnetsov, Vasily Polenov, Ivan Kramskoi, Isaac Levitan, and Valentin Serov. Tretyakov followed his own taste and often bought paintings not anticipated by critics. Later he also began to collect works of ancient Russian art and purchased a number of icons from the collection of Ivan Silin. In 1892 Tretyakov gifted his collection to Moscow, and a year later the gallery was officially opened to visitors.