For artists to overcome their talent better and faster, they need to follow some patterns and choose a role model for their work. One way to choose a fair role model in art is to visit the museum and observe previous artists' works. Art has a great value between Russians as well as the artist. In Russia history, there were lots of wealthy people who donated their money, their lands, and their time to create a well-deserved platform for artists to master their talent. One of those places that specifically established to help artists grew faster and better is the Stieglitz Museum of Applied Art in the city of St. Petersburg.
The Museum of Applied Art is located at the northern part of St. Petersburg on Solyanoy Street. This museum is part of the Stieglitz's academy which explains why it's a little bit hard to reach. We will tell the difficulties to enter the museum at the end of this post.
Alexander Von Stieglitz was a St. Petersburg born wealthy philanthropist and the first Russia State Bank’s governor who admired the art a lot. He did loads of patronage acts in his lifetime. He established the Stieglitz's School of Technical Drawing in 1876 which later changed its name to Stieglitz's industrial art academy. In that exact year, he also founded the museum of applied art to be a part of the academy. The first collection of the museum was the personal collection of Stieglitz including some rare porcelain, decorative art and crafts, ceramics, furniture, metalwork, and carvings. He assigned Maximilian Mesmacher as the first director of the museum.
As the first director of the museum, Mesmacher built the museum's building himself. He who praised the Renaissance architecture took a similar museum in Vienna as his model and designed the museum following the neo-Renaissance style. The architecture of this building is unique and unusual for a building in St. Petersburg which is why it added in the list of must-seen constructions in the city. The ground floor with its arched windows is designed in rusticate style, but the first floor decorated with loads of details and beautiful sculpture. The rooms' pattern was after the Terem Palace which praised by many architects. The museum opened in front of the royal family in 1896, but Alexander Von Stieglitz who died in 1884, never got the chance to witness the grand opening of his museum.
Following the October 1917 Revolution, the Soviet government handed most of the valuable collections in Stieglitz museum over to the Hermitage Museum, and the museum itself became one of the branches of the Hermitage until 1926. However, after three years, the museum began to work as an individual museum again. During the Communist's era, the rich interior of the museum destroyed or gone completely. Even one of the great halls of the museum turned into a gym salon. Until the fall of the Soviet Union, things were the same way, and only after that, the grand restoration began.
Currently, the museum contains over 30,000 exhibits in its collections including a huge selection of decorative arts and items such as rare porcelain, decorative art and crafts, ceramics, chandeliers, furniture, metalwork, and carvings.
Besides the collections, there are some rooms in the museum which are as valuable as the collections such as the Ancient Russia Room, The Medieval Room, and the Antique Room which are the smaller halls of the museum. Still, the recently restored interior of the center hall with its high glass roof is one of the main attractions of the museum in an architectural point of view.
In the central hall, above the enormous staircase, there’s a statue of Alexander Von Stieglitz as a monument to his donation in building the museum and the platform for the students to grow their artistic talents.
The museum collections which are from the antiqueness to the present day, each covers a specific time in the history such as the Western European porcelains art or the Oriental ceramics. There is also some unique furniture from 16th to 19th centuries, metalwork arts and crafts from the students’ work in the second half of 20th century, and an amazing of tile stoves from the 18th century of Russia.
The museum contains 14 different halls which each one displays a part of history. For example, the Anteroom held a bunch of temporary exhibitions of the museum throughout the year. The Italian gallery which is a small part of the museum contains some amazing furniture from different periods. The Western European shows a collection of porcelain and ceramic from the 16th century and a unique collection from West Germany art. There's also the Teremok Room which includes the collection of Russian artifacts from various periods including costumes, ethnographic dolls, metal artifacts, and furniture.
The Stieglitz Museum is one of the most interesting and amazing museums of St. Petersburg, however, as we mentioned before, it’s hard to access this museum compare to a normal visit to the other museums. Even if you manage to find the museum in the streets, it’s still hard to enter the building since it’s under the academy's administration. It’s almost impossible for anyone to past the security without getting the permission from the academy’s administrators first; but even if you manage to enter the museum without permission, there’s a high chance that you’d be lost in complicated corridors in the museum. For these very reasons, if you want to visit this amazing place in your St. Petersburg tour, you need to inform your Russia tour administrators to include the Stieglitz museum in your tour program. Since the museum is a part of the Academy of industrial art, don’t get surprised by the number of students sketching the arts, in your visit to the museum. It’s their workshop, after all.
Besides the difficulties to enter the place, the museum would probably be one of the highlights of your travel to Russia, especially if you admire the fine arts and antiques. Don’t forget to visit this museum in your travel to St. Petersburg, but first, inform your tour guides to guarantee a pleasant visit for you.
