By 1783, Catherine the Great had purchased artworks by the thousands. To house them she added annex after annex to the Winter Palace, calling them her Hermitage — literally, a home for hermits ...

For the brilliant, ruthless, generous and visionary empress, art and culture were tools both to charm Europe, with the scope ...

She was a patron of the arts, literature and education and acquired an art collection which now forms the basis of the Hermitage Museum. Catherine died in St Petersburg on 17 November 1796 and was ...

Catherine the Great founded the Hermitage Museum in 1764 as a place to house her private art collection. The main museum complex comprises six buildings, including the Winter Palace, which was the ...

Though it's located about 20 miles outside St. Petersburg proper, the Catherine Palace and Park certainly merits a visit by anyone in the area, especially enthusiasts of elaborate and fanciful ...