The Painting, Graphics and Applied Art Department possesses 40,000 items. Here there is a collection of theatrical portraits, miniatures, etchings, set and costume designs, sculptures, set models. The earliest pieces date back to mid-18th century, when outstanding Italian designers Antonio Bibbiena, Giuseppe Valeriani, Antonio Canoppi brought glory to the Russian theatre. The latest acquisitions: works by artists Eduard Kocherguin, Boris Messerer, Teimuraz Murvanidze - were made in 1997.
The pearls of the collection are the works of artists who belonged to the "World of Art" group - Boris Anisfeld, Lev Bakst, Alexander Benois, Alexander Golovin, Konstantin Korovin, Sergei Sudeikin, and masters of the early 20th century avant-garde art: Kazimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin, Natan Altman, Leonid Tchupyatov, Nikolai Akimov, Tatyana Bruni, Alexander Tyshler, Vladimir Dmitriev.
The Manuscript and Document Department (21,000 items) includes music autographs of Alexander Borodin, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Dmitry Shostakovich; the director's explications of Vsevolod Meyerhold, Georgy Tovstonogov; the diaries and notebooks of Anna Pavlova, Olga Spesivtzeva; letters of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Sergei Diaghilev, Konstantin Stanislavsky. Of major importance among the Department's treasures are the personal archives of Marius Petipa, Fyodor Chaliapin, Agrippina Vaganova, Fyodor Lopukhov, Tatyana Vyacheslova.
There is a large collection of manuscripts, connected with the work of the main St.Petersburg theatres: the Alexandrinsky (former Pushkin) Drama Theatre, the Mariinsky (former Kirov) Opera and Ballet Theatre, the Musorgsky (Maly) Opera and Ballet Theatre. The dates range from 1725 to 1997.
In the Museum collection there are authographs of A.Blok, M.Gorky, V.Mayakovsky, V. Nemirovich-Danchenko, K.Stanislavsky, M. Petipa, A.Chekhov, S.Eisenstein, M.Battistini, A.Patti, J.Rossini, M.Taglioni and others.
Memorabilia Department (8,000 exhibits). Here are actors' personal belongings, decorations, orders and memorial medals, conductor's batons, articles of the 18-20th centuries theatre life, touching gifts of the audience to its idols - ballerinas Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, conductor Eduard Napravnik, singers Nikolai Figner and Ivan Yershov.
The gem of the Museum collection is a set of ballet shoes - from Maria Taglioni's to Natalia Makarova's. It allows one to trace the evolution of the female dancing technique.
There is also an extremely rare Collection of Theatrical Costumes, 2,000 in number. It reflects the artistic versatility of the different theatrical epochs. Here there are costumes of the legendary first night performance of M.Petipa's "Sleeping Beauty" (1890); the costumes of Fokin's ballets, designed by Benois, Bakst, Anisfeld, Golovin, Roerich; as well as the costumes for the experimental ballets of the 1920's- '30's of the choreographic innovator Fyodor Lopukhov.
Photographs and Negatives Collection (240,000 items) is the largest of its kind in Russia. There are portraits of actors in life and on the stage, the unique photographs of Diaghilev's "Russian Ballets" rehearsals, the mise en scenes of opera, ballet and drama performances, photographs from the family albums of the Stravinsky, Komissarjevskaya, Kshesinskaya.
Collection of Playbills and Programmes (56,000 items) recreates the chronicle of theatrical events, from late 18th century and up to our days. Here we may learn about the Petersburg-Leningrad tours of the Moscow Art Theatre of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, the Moscow Chamber Theatre headed by A.Tairov; about the Russian tours of the European celebrities Maria Taglioni, Enrico Caruso, Titto Ruffo, Sarah Bernhardt, Anna Magnani, Jean-Louis Barrault, Peter Brook.
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