The astonishingly rich collections of the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, include more than 40,000 prints and drawings, which only now are becoming accessible to Western audiences.
This handsomely produced catalogue includes a representative selection of the Hermitage's French Old Master drawings, complemented by eight great French paintings from the same Museum. Together they convey something of the riches of the Cabinet of Drawings and the Hermitage Picture Gallery, both of which have their origin in a time when Catherine the Great was one of the most adventurous collectors in Europe.
The leading names in French art are all here - Francois Clouet, Jacques Callot and Jacques de Bellange, Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain, Watteau, Boucher and Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Ingres, Manet and Degas, Matisse and Picasso - and each is represented by fine examples of their skills.
Little known outside specialist circles, these works offer a rare glimpse into the least accessible parts of one of the world's great treasure houses
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