Mikhailovsky Palace Exhibition

About exhibition

The treasury of Russian art — the Russian Museum — occupies one of the most beautiful buildings in the center of St. Petersburg: the former Grand Duke Mikhailovsky Palace. The interior decoration of the building astonishes with its magnificence and stylistic restraint no less than its exterior. In each hall of the palace, Rossi created his own ensemble of elements coexisting in harmonious unity. Particularly impressive is the still-preserved grand vestibule — a wide entrance arch, the ceremonial flights of the main staircase crowned by its Corinthian colonnade on the bel étage, a richly painted ceiling with an overhead skylight (the work of Giovanni Battista Scotti), and along the walls — rows of exquisitely executed bas-reliefs.