Description of the attraction
Regional Art Museum named after V. P. Sukachev Museum in Irkutsk is one of the oldest museums in Russia. It is located in the historic center of the city, occupying two buildings. The basis of the museum collection was an extensive picture gallery belonging to the Irkutsk head, the chairman of the East Siberian department of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society (VSOIRGO), the largest benefactor - V. P. Sukachev, collected by him at the end of the second half of the 19th century.
The first paintings painted by Russian artists were acquired by student V. Sukachev in St. Petersburg in 1870. This date is traditionally considered to be the year of the creation of the art museum. Over time, among the acquired works appeared works by Aivazovsky, Repin, Maksimov, Bryullov, Myasoedov, Shishkin, as well as copies from the paintings of Western European painters Murillo, Raphael, Correggio and Rubens ordered in the museums of Florence and Munich.
In 1920 the gallery was nationalized and became part of the City Museum, which was opened in May 1920. In the Irkutsk collection, the exhibits came from the State Museum Fund, various public and state organizations not only in Irkutsk, but also in Moscow.
Currently, the Museum named after V. P. Sukachev, there are over 22 thousand works of art of different times and peoples. The collection includes a small but very rare collection of monuments of Paleolithic art in the Baikal region, as well as one of the most significant collections of wooden sculpture and icons of the 15th-18th centuries in Siberia, including an original icon of Siberian writing.
