The Day of the Hermitage’ - a major cultural event at the National Museum

On March 11, 2019, as part of the Memorandum of Understanding between the National Museum of Oman and the State Hermitage of Russia, a major cultural event entitled ‘The Day of The Hermitage’ was hosted by the National Museum under the auspices of His Highness Sayyid Haitham bin Tarik al-Said (Minister of Heritage & Culture and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Museum)

Event highlights included the inauguration ceremony for an exhibition of three Russian national treasures; a late 18th century sabre presented by Empress Catherine II to Count Alexey Orlov-Chesmensky, a snuffbox with a famous portrait of Catherine, and a Hispano-Moresque style ceramic vase featuring Arabic inscriptions alongside the Russian imperial emblem. The exhibition will remain on view until May 10, 2019.

The event also marked the signing of a bilateral ‘Training and Capacity-building Agreement’ by Jamal bin Hassan al-Moosawi (Director General of the National Museum) and Professor Dr. Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovskiy (Director General of the State Hermitage Museum). Other event highlights were a lecture presented in Arabic by Professor Dr. Piotrovskiy, entitled ‘Mystery of the Oriental Collections of the Hermitage Museum’, and two conservation workshops conducted by Russian expert Maksim Lapshi.

The National Museum, established by royal decree in 2013 and opened July 30, 2016, is the Sultanate`s flagship cultural institution, showcasing the nation’s cultural heritage from the earliest evidence of human settlement in the Oman Peninsula through to the present day.

As a national institution with global outreach, the museum is dedicated to ensuring Oman’s cultural heritage is appreciated not only within the Sultanate, but also internationally. Further, it aims to provide opportunities for cultural expression, innovation, and the transfer of traditional skills and knowledge from one generation to the next.

The museum is located in the heart of Muscat in a purpose-designed building. The total area of the building is 13,700 square metres, including 4,000 square metres allocated for 14 permanent galleries – The Land and the People Gallery, Maritime History Gallery, Arms and Armour Gallery, Aflaj Gallery, Currency Gallery, Prehistory and Ancient History Galleries, Splendours of Islam Gallery, Oman and the World Gallery, Intangible Heritage Gallery and Renaissance Gallery, among others. A further 400 square metres are allocated for temporary exhibitions.

The National Museum houses more than 6,000 objects and offers 33 digital immersive experiences, a fully equipped Learning Centre, state-of-the-art conservation facilities, a UHD cinema and discovery areas for children. It features an integrated infrastructure for special needs and is the first museum in the Middle East to adopt Arabic Braille script for the visually impaired. It also houses the region’s first open-plan museum storage concept, where visitors can learn about the various processes that artefacts go through before they are put on display.

The State Hermitage is a renowned museum of art and culture in St. Petersburg, Russia. Founded in 1764 CE, it is one of the oldest museums in the world. It is also among the world’s largest museums, with more than 3 million works of art and artefacts in its collection. In addition, it has international dependencies in the Netherlands (Amsterdam) and Italy (Ferrara).

Notable for their massive scale, the Winter Palace and nine other buildings that together house the Hermitage are distinguished cultural and historical monuments in their own right. Their extensive collections include artworks from Western Europe, Russia, the Near and Far East, and Central Asia; numismatic collections stretching from antiquity to modern times; Western European, Oriental and Russian weaponry; and ancient cultural artefacts.

The State Hermitage has over 2,500 employees, 250 of whom are scientists or experts in the arts or archaeology. Almost 5.3 million people visit the Hermitage annually and its buildings contain more than 500 galleries. The Hermitage possesses over 17,000 paintings, 12,000 statues, more than one million coins and medallions, over 800,000 archaeological artefacts, about 360,000 pieces of applied arts and over 600,000 graphic works. It is also worth noting that there are a total of 2,300 museums in Russia, housing almost 80 million artefacts, and around 50,000 thousand libraries containing more than a billion publications.