Description of the attraction
The Collectors Museum was opened in Peterhof on July 30, 2002. It is a historical three-storey building, erected according to the project of Rastrelli (Verhnesadskiy house). The basis of the museum is made up of two large collections donated to the Peterhof State Museum-Reserve by famous Petersburg collectors: Joseph Moiseevich Ezrakh and spouses Alexander Alexandrovich and Rosa Mikhailovna Timofeev. Alexander Timofeev died before his wife, so Roza Mikhailovna wrote her will on donating the collection to the museum herself.
The collections occupy eight museum halls and consist of paintings and arts and crafts.
Collected by I. M. Ezrachom's collection of porcelain has no analogues among private Russian collections. With its help, you can get an idea of European porcelain from the time of its inception until the middle of the 19th century. The main part of the collection is items from the Meissen Royal Porcelain Manufactory and other German factories. In addition, the collection includes unique products from factories in Italy, France, Denmark, Austria, Russia, England. Among the creations of artistic porcelain, special attention is drawn to the so-called "propaganda porcelain of high revolutionary content", released in 1918-1923.
The picturesque part of Ezrah's collection is represented by paintings by famous artists of the 19-20 centuries (Russian and Soviet). Here you can get acquainted with the works of Falk, Petrov-Vodkin, Larionov, Saryan, Goncharov, Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Serebryakova, Kuznetsov, Borisov-Musatov.
The collection of Timofeevs is represented by 80 works of painting and graphics, including paintings by N. Roerich, P. Konchalovsky, B. Kustodiev, K. Yuon, M. Nesterov, M. Dobuzhinsky, David Burliuk, I. Bilibin, V. Konashevich, A. Rylov … The collection's true rarities are drawings by masters of the Italian and French schools of the 16-19 centuries.
In addition to the collections of Ezrakh and the Timofeevs, the museum presents two small collections belonging to Moscow collectors.
The museum regularly hosts exhibitions of exhibits acquired by the museum. On the top floor of the building there are foundations of the Peterhof State Museum-Reserve and restoration workshops, and in the basement there is a restaurant.
The Collectors Museum was created in record time: it took no more than two years. All this time, active restoration work was carried out on the building, and the collections were sorted and described. The project was financed by the budget of Russia, as well as the museum's own budget. In total, about 40 million rubles were spent on the creation of the museum. All funds were spent on the restoration of the museum building and the purchase of museum equipment. All collections of the Peterhof State Museum-Reserve were donated. And they are precisely the main museum value. The cost of some exhibits significantly exceeds the total cost of creating a museum.
Roza Mikhailovna Timofeeva gave the museum literally everything that she had - even her wardrobe, because she had no heirs. They say that she wanted to donate her collection to one of the largest museums in St. Petersburg, and invited the director of this museum to come and get acquainted with the collection. But the meeting never took place. The employees of the Peterhof State Museum-Reserve keep the name of this museum a secret.
