Video excursions sequence “Walking through the Museum” is replenished with the new video “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” recently held in the museum “Collection”.

The exhibition brings together unique sculptures and postcards from the museum Collection Repository and is dedicated to the creative dialogue between French and Russian sculptors of the second half of the 19^th – early 20^th centuries.

Art items by Mathurin Moreau (1822-1912), Antonin Mercié (1845-1916), Emmanuel Villanis (1858-1914) and Godefroid Devreese (1861-1941) were the centrepiece of the exhibition. The works of French academicians presented in the exposition were complemented by the sculptures of talented Russian artisans: Matvei Chizhov (1838-1916), Maria Dillon (1858-1932) and Naum Aronson (1872-1943).
The creative biographies of these underestimated sculptors provide a new perspective on the socio-economic aspects of Franco-Russian artistic contacts: differences in the programmes and structure of studies at the academies, details of the organisation of boarding trips, and the peculiarities of collecting and patronage.

Postcards of the late 19^th century with the images of sculptures and city views presented in the exhibition reveal these aspects in a new way.