Museum Collection hosts the exhibition "Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder" that unites the unmatched sculptures and old postcards presented in the museum Repository. New thematic exposition is dedicated to the creative dialogue between the French and Russian sculptors of the second half of the 19^th – early 20^th centuries.

The centrepieces of the exhibition, “Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder”, are the works of Mathurin Moreau (1822-1912), Antonin Mercieu (1845-1916), Emmanuel Villanis (1858-1914) and Godefroid Devreese (1861-1941). The works of French academicians presented in the exposition are complemented by the sculptures of talented Russian artisans: Matvei Chizhov (1838-1916), Maria Dillon (1858-1932) and Naum Aronson (1872-1943). Throughout their lives, these sculptors were engaged in active creative dialogue with their French contemporaries, they were striving to assimilate, interpret and adapt the experience and traditions of the French academism.

These artisans concentrated in their works largely on the search of modern beauty canons, and the works of those sculptors feature historical evidence of that time, contributing to the understanding of historical and cultural processes in France and Russia.

The "Authors/Producers" section of the museum Collection website features biographies of these sculptors, talented Russian and French academicians of the second half of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Eventful biographies of these unfairly desuete artisans afford us the opportunity to examine the socio-economic aspects of Franco-Russian art contacts from a new angle: differences in the educational programmes and integrated training structure in art academies, organisational detail of bursary trips, and the peculiarities of collecting and patronage.

You can sign up for a tour through ‘The Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder’ exhibition on the museum website in the ‘Contact Us’ section