Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: How many items are in the Hermitage museum collection?
Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display, comprise over three million items (the numismatic collection accounts for about one-third of them),[5] including the largest collection of paintings in the world. The collections occupy a large complex of six historic buildings along Palace Embankment, including the Winter Palace, a former residence of Russian emperors. Apart from them, the Menshikov Palace, Museum of Porcelain, Storage Facility at Staraya Derevnya, and the eastern wing of the General Staff Building are also part of the museum. The museum has several exhibition centers abroad. The Hermitage is a federal state property. Since July 1992, the director of the museum has been Mikhail Piotrovsky.[6]
The completion and upkeep of and an inventory system helps to deter and aid in the early detection of theft of the collection. The International Council of Museums (ICOM) urges museums to complete and maintain their inventory systems because "If a museum does not know what is in its collection, where the works are located, and the condition they are in, it, in effect, invites theft because it will have no immediate sense that an object has disappeared, and most important, it will have no descriptive information to aid the recovery of an object in the event of a theft." The type of inventory system used by a museum will be dictated by the Collections Management Policy (CMP). The CMP will determine how often items, what items, and how many items are to be inventory. Museums need to periodically complete a one-hundred percent inventory of their collection, but for the period in between the completion of such an inventory, a random sampling of the collection is sufficient. A random sampling of the collection serves as an indicator for the rest of the collection. If all the items are accounted for in a random sampling, then it can be assumed that rest of the collections’ records is just as reliable. However, a complete inventory provides the institution with the knowledge that the entire collection can be accounted for; the random sampling is used to check the consistency of the collections’ records.
During 2012, he co-directed a publication dealing with how the Soviets traded away their nation's art (1917–1938), including works of art drawn from the collections of the State Hermitage Museum, titled Selling Russia's Treasures. At the same year, he organized at the State Hermitage Museum an international colloquium, "Posthumous Bronzes in Law and Art History", which hosted museum directors, art historians and legal experts.
The New Hermitage was opened to the public on 5 February 1852.[19] In the same year the Egyptian Collection of the Hermitage Museum emerged, and was particularly enriched by items given by the Duke of Leuchtenberg, Nicholas I's son-in-law. Meanwhile, in 1851–1860, the interiors of the Old Hermitage were redesigned by Andrei Stackensneider to accommodate the State Assembly, Cabinet of Ministers and state apartments. Stakenschneider created the Pavilion Hall in the Northern Pavilion of the Small Hermitage in 1851–1858.[11]
There is a large collection of Lahij products in the Azerbaijan Museum of National History, which reflects the many different and richly made items produced by the Lahij craftsmen. Many similar items are also to be found in the Russian Museum of Ethnography (Saint-Petersburg) and the Museum of Eastern Peoples (Moscow). The Louvre Museum in France also has a collection of items from Azerbaijan, which include a copper pot manufactured in Lahij. The Museum of Bern has a collection of firearms and weapons of cold steel, manufactured in Azerbaijan, which includes rifles, swords and sabres, richly decorated with ornamental patterns and inlaid work.
In 1928, the Soviet government ordered the Hermitage to compile a list of valuable works of art for export. In 1930–1934, over two thousand works of art from the Hermitage collection were clandestinely sold at auctions abroad or directly to foreign officials and businesspeople. The sold items included Raphael's Alba Madonna, Titian's Venus with a Mirror, and Jan van Eyck's Annunciation, among other world known masterpieces by Botticelli, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, and others. In 1931, after a series of negotiations, Andrew W. Mellon acquired 21 works of art from the Hermitage and later donated to form a nucleus of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (see also Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings).
The collection was established in 1852, the year the museum was made open to the public, when it purchased the collection of statuettes from Countess Alexandra Lavalle, previously stored in her mansion on English Embankment, and received the items collected in Egypt by Maximilian, Duke of Leuchtenberg, including two black basalt sarcophagi of the Late Period, now displayed in the middle of the hall, as well as the sculpture group of Theban governor Amenemheb with his wife and mother (14th century BC). In 1853 the statue of Sekhmet (15th century BC), brought by Alexei Norov from Theban Necropolis of the Eleventh dynasty of Egypt in the 1830s, was moved from the Imperial Academy of Arts to the Hermitage. Some items were purchased for the museum from antiquities traders in Egypt and collections of Russian merchants or received as gifts. In 1862 the collection expanded significantly, as the Castiglione collection, which was purchased by the Imperial Academy of Sciences from Carlo Ottavio Castiglione in Milan in 1826 and consisted of more than 900 items, core of the Egyptian museum of the Kunstkamera, was transferred to the Hermitage. However, there were no Egyptologists in Russia at that time. Vladimir Golenishchev became the first Russian egyptologist and started to work in the Hermitage in the 1870s. At the insistence of Golenishchev in 1881 the remainder of the Egyptian museum of the Kunstkamera was moved to the Hermitage. The Hermitage collection continued to grow in the 1880s, when Coptic written monuments and two fragments of Egyptian water clocks were acquired. In 1891 Golenishchev published the first complete inventory of the collection. Since the 1870s Golenishchev had collected an impressive private Egyptian collection, which was sold to the Pushkin Museum in Moscow in 1909, shortly before he emigrated. For a few years, as the building for the Moscow museum was being constructed, the items were also stored in the Hermitage. Soviet orientalist Vasily Struve was in charge of the Hermitage's Egyptian collection from 1918 to 1933. The highlights of the exhibition include the mummy of priest Petese (10th century BC) and a fragment of a tablet of Ramesses II's peace treaty with the Hittites (13th century BC).
There are many rushnyk collections in ethnographic museums. In Ukraine, the Rushnyk Museum is located in Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine as part of The Museum of Folk Architecture and Way of Life of Central Naddnipryanshchyna. A Russian rushnyk collection is housed at the Hermitage Museum.
The exhibit was the first display in The Netherlands of works from the Hermitage Museum's collections of French paintings of the late 19th and early 20th century. The collection was started by Russian collectors Morozov and Shchukin. The exhibit contained hundreds of masterpieces by artists who pioneered Modernism, including Matisse, Van Dongen, De Vlaminck, Derain and Picasso. It looked at the concept of Modernism from a historical perspective and examined how artists joined the new movement. The guest curator for the exhibit was Henk van Os, Professor at the University of Amsterdam and chairman of the Specialists Council of the Hermitage Amsterdam.
Vigée Le Brun created some 660 portraits and 200 landscapes. In addition to many works in private collections, her paintings are owned by major museums, such as the Louvre, Hermitage Museum, National Gallery in London, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and many other collections in continental Europe and the United States.
The main courtyard, which had been used as a civil service car park, and the main terrace overlooking the Thames were refurbished and opened to the public; these alterations being overseen by the conservation architects Donald Insall & Associates. Grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund financed the conversion of the South Wing between 1999 and 2003: a visitor centre featuring audio-visual displays on the history of the building, the gilded state barge of the Lord Mayor of the City of London and a shop and café were opened, overlooking the river. The Gilbert Collection of decorative arts, and the Hermitage Rooms, which stage exhibitions of items loaned from the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, moved into the same area. The last Hermitage exhibition took place in 2007 and the Gilbert Collection galleries closed in 2008; the collection moved into new galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum in June 2009. Somerset House now puts on a programme of art exhibitions drawing on various sources.
Antonova had long supported the recreation of the State Museum of New Western Art, a museum created from the collections of Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov, destroyed by Stalin in 1948. The collections of the museum were dispersed to the Pushkin and the Hermitage Museum. The Hermitage has been reluctant to let its collection go to the proposed museum and Antonova and the Hermitage director, Mikhail Piotrovsky publicly disagreed over the issue.
The British Museum now has nearly all the surviving metalwork, with one of the pair of griffin-headed bracelets on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum, and displays them in Room 52. The group arrived at the museum by different routes, with many items bequeathed to the nation by Augustus Wollaston Franks. The coins are more widely dispersed, and more difficult to firmly connect with the treasure. A group believed to come from it is in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Peterburg, and other collections have examples.
Tinne acquired a significant collection of clothes from shops in Bold Street, Liverpool shops and her local dressmaker. The collection comprised both off-the-rail items and bespoke outfits. She also made some clothes, including special outfits for her children's dance shows. The collection is held by National Museums Liverpool, donated in three stages by Emily Tinne's daughter, Alexine. Due to the sheer volume of items, Alexine would put out two tea chests per week, which would be collected by the museum. The collection includes more than 700 items, though many other items could not be accepted due to the low quality. The total collection included over 1000 items. The collection is the largest collection of an individual's clothing owned by a museum in the United Kingdom.
Other exhibits include the historic clothing of Podhale Gorals and the arts and crafts. The Ethnographic department is the second-oldest in the museum and its ethnographic collection features approximately 10,750 items. Many enthusiasts of the culture of Podhale Gorals donated historical items and clothing to The Tatra Museum: Countess Róża Krasińska, Bronisław Dembowski, and Zygmunt Gnatowski. In 1949, after the Museum was nationalised, ethnographers were employed to acquire items missing from the already rich and valuable collection. The new acquisitions were mainly paintings and a large collection of glass painting, as well as folk sculpture and crafts, especially made of metal and leather. Many of these items are on display in the main building.
Captain Alfred Walter Francis Fuller was a British ethnographic collector. Throughout his life he acquired an extensive collection of Polynesian artifacts. The "Iuhi", along with about 6,884 other artifacts, was purchased by the Field Museum from the Fullers. Additionally, about 300 more items would be donated to the museum by Fuller’s wife at a later time. This collection was formed over 62 years of Fullers lifetime when he was constantly purchasing and trading items in Britain. His collection was created during an era when Great Britain and Polynesia had a relationship that allowed the import of many Polynesian artifacts. Although Fuller never visited Polynesia, he acquired his items through purchase and gifts. For instance, sale in private homes, sale of museum inventories, auctions, and the shops of dealers are all places where he was able to purchase Polynesian objects. Sometimes he would trade an item that did not fit into his collection as well as the object that he was trading for. Additionally, events such as the missionary movements of London missionary and Melanesian missionary societies brought in many artifacts from the Polynesian world. Other items were acquired from the private collections of other military officials. He could also find amazing items in antique shops and he would be very excited if he found something that was worth a lot, but he paid a little for it because the shop owner did not understand the value of the object. From the adventures of missionaries and the army, various objects were brought back to Britain. The items he acquired included numerous variations of the same object that exemplified technological advancement. He compared and studied each object and he wanted as complete of a picture of the item as possible. Fuller was dedicated to collecting these items, but he never visited Polynesia. He was what one would call an armchair anthropologist because he never actually visited the sites, but acquired items that were so useful to the knowledge of Polynesian culture. In his older years he announced that he was looking for a museum or similar institution to house the collection. He was put into contact with the Field Museum officials through a friend, and in the 1950s he sold the collection. He was initially against selling the items, but eventually agreed upon a price, 40,000 pounds (today that would be about 834,600 pounds), that he felt would do well for his daughter after he passed on. In addition to acquisition of the collection the museum agreed to not split up the collection. Fuller wanted scientists to have as complete of a picture as possible for study and the acquisition of knowledge of old Polynesian societies. When the negotiations of price were being made, Fuller talked with Roland W. Force, a museum representative, and told the stories of how he acquired each item, the date, and any story that went along with the item. He also told what he could on its origins and how it was acquired. The archived recordings of their conversations are available through the museum.
Many said that visiting this flat was truly unforgettable. 
The main objects from the collection were at different times either sold or given as gifts by Sergei Varshavsky or his descendants to the Hermitage and Pushkin Museum and were exhibited many times
Selected netsuke and Japanese woodblock prints from Sergei Varshavsky Collection are a part of the permanent exhibition of the Oriental Art Department at the State Hermitage.
The most profound account of Sergei Varshavsky collecting spirit and practice can be found in an extensive essay by Yuri Varshavsky "The Joyful Job of an Art Collector. From Notes About My Father" with a foreword by Boris Piotrovsky, Director of The State Hermitage Museum.
The RAC flag underwent many changes during its 75-year history. There is only one known extant flag, in the Hermitage Museum's collection in Saint Petersburg which serves as one guide to the flag's true appearance.
However, little is known of it origins. The flag was received by the Hermitage in 1848–49 from the Historic Artillery History Museum "where, in turn, it had probably come from the old Hermitage collection in the 1820's"
Hermitage Revealed is a documentary film directed by Margy Kinmonth and produced by Foxtrot Films Ltd which tells the story of the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg - formerly a royal palace and now one of the largest and most visited museums in the world. Holding over 3 million objects and with more curators than any other museum, the exhibits go back to Catherine the Great. Celebrating the museum's 250th anniversary in 2014, the film shows how the collection came about, how it survived revolutionary times and what makes the Hermitage Museum unique today.
The Pergamon Museum was severely damaged during the air attacks on Berlin at the end of the Second World War. Many of the display objects had been stored in safe places, and some of the large exhibits were walled in for protection. In 1945, the Red Army collected all of the loose museum items, either as war booty or, ostensibly, to rescue them from looting and fires then raging in Berlin. Not until 1958 were most of the objects returned to East Germany. Significant parts of the collection remain in Russia. Some are currently stored in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. The return of these items has been arranged in a treaty between Germany and Russia but, as of June 2003, is blocked by Russian restitution laws.
With the onset of the Communist Revolution in 1917, the Russian art and financial community went into panic, and aristocrats flocked to the partners of A.K. Rudanovsky and Fabergé to convert their art and antiques to cash. Rudanovsky and Fabergé rapidly accumulated valuable items to create one of the finest art and antique collections of Russia and Europe. After acquiring it, Rudanovsky donated large portions of this newly acquired art to museums (mainly the Hermitage, but some smaller collections can be found at the Louvre and at the Metropolitan Museum). The remainder was hidden with the aim of protecting it for future generations at Agathon's dacha. The dacha of Fabergé was commonly referred to as "The Small Hermitage."Narcissus - Faberge St. Petersburg 1908. 
Cajolong, jade, diamonds, rhinestone, gold. The State Hermitage.
'Hermitage Revealed' (2014) is a BBC documentary from Margy Kinmonth. The film tells the story of its journey from imperial palace to state museum, investigating remarkable tales of dedication, devotion, ownership and ultimate sacrifice, showing how the collection came about, how it survived tumultuous revolutionary times and what makes the Hermitage unique today.[37]
Originally, the only building housing the collection was the "Small Hermitage". Today, the Hermitage Museum encompasses many buildings on the Palace Embankment and its neighbourhoods. Apart from the Small Hermitage, the museum now also includes the "Old Hermitage" (also called "Large Hermitage"), the "New Hermitage", the "Hermitage Theatre", and the "Winter Palace", the former main residence of the Russian tsars. In recent years, the Hermitage has expanded to the General Staff Building on the Palace Square facing the Winter Palace, and the Menshikov Palace.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Piotrovsky advocated the opening of the Hermitage collections to the wider world, which resulted in the establishment of the Hermitage Rooms in Somerset House, Hermitage Amsterdam and the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum. His tenure was not entirely free of scandals, however. After the museum announced in July 2006 that 221 minor items, including jewelry, Orthodox icons, silverware and richly enameled objects, had been stolen by one of the museum officials, there were calls for Piotrovsky's resignation.
Today, the 100 perper coins are considered to be the finest examples of Montenegrin coinage. It is not known how many 100 perper coins have been preserved but numismatists generally agree that around 150 specimens still exist, including those stored in the museum collections of the Hermitage, the American Numismatic Society, the British Museum, the Prada and the Vienna Canton. Several are believed to be kept in private collections in Montenegro while two gold 100 perper coins adorn the collection of the Central Bank of Montenegro. At auctions, these coins reach a value of 20 to 35 thousand euros, depending on their condition.