Benois Madonna
Leonardo da Vinci · 1480
State Hermitage Museum
Saint Petersburg
Two Leonardo Madonnas and Rembrandt's Prodigal Son, in the Winter Palace of the Russian tsars. Catherine the Great started it in 1764 with a single purchase, and it now holds more paintings than any museum on earth.
What to see
Benois Madonna
Leonardo da Vinci · 1480
The Benois Madonna, otherwise known as the Madonna and Child with Flowers, is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg. One of two Madonnas begun by Leonardo in October 1478, it was completed c.
Madonna Litta
Leonardo da Vinci · 1490
The Madonna Litta is a late 15th-century painting, by Leonardo da Vinci, in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg. It depicts the Virgin Mary breastfeeding the Christ child, a devotional subject known as the Madonna lactans.
The Return of the Prodigal Son
Rembrandt · 1668
The Return of the Prodigal Son is an oil painting by Rembrandt, part of the collection of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. It is among the Dutch master's final works, likely completed within two years of his death in 1669. Depicting the moment of the prodigal son's return to his father in the Biblical parable, it is a renowned work described by art historian Kenneth Clark as "a picture which those who have seen the original in St. Petersburg may be forgiven for claiming as the greatest picture ever painted".
The Lunch
Diego Velázquez · 1617
The Farmers' Lunch is one of the earliest paintings by the Spanish artist Diego Velázquez. Painted in oil on canvas in 1617, it combines a still life of food and drink with a depiction of three comic farmers, whose physiognomy the artist studies closely. The composition shows a younger man gesturing with his right hand to reinforce the story coming from his half-open lips, and an older man listening attentively while holding his cup up to a woman so she can refill it with wine. The still life includes fish, bread, a carrot, a lemon, and a copper vessel.
Pazyryk carpet
The Pazyryk burials are a number of Scythian (Saka) Iron Age tombs found in the Pazyryk Valley and the Ukok plateau in the Altai Mountains, Siberia, south of the modern city of Novosibirsk, Russia; the site is close to the borders with China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. Numerous comparable burials have been found in neighbouring western Mongolia.
Madonna and Child (The Conestabile Madonna)
Raphael · 1504
The Conestabile Madonna is a small painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael, executed c. 1504.
Artists
Dutch · 1606–1669 · Dutch Golden Age painting
Dutch · 1853–1890 · Post-impressionism
Flemish · 1577–1640 · Flemish Baroque painting
French · 1839–1906 · Post-impressionism
Holy Roman Empire · 1483–1520
Kingdom of Prussia · 1774–1840
France · 1840–1926
France · 1824–1904
French · 1848–1903 · Post-impressionism
Italian · 1488–1576 · Venetian school
France · 1841–1919 · Impressionism
Artworks
Crouching Boy
Michelangelo · 1530
Morpheus and Iris
Pierre-Narcisse Guérin · 1811
Actors of the Comedie-Francaise
Jean-Antoine Watteau · 1710
Sappho and Phaon
Jacques-Louis David · 1809
Rothschild
Michael Perkhin · 1902
Saints Peter and Paul
El Greco · 1587
Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych
Jan van Eyck · 1437
Love Scene
Giulio Romano · 1525
The Union of Earth and Water (Antwerp and the Scheldt)
Peter Paul Rubens · 1618
Judith
Giorgione · 1504
Place de la Concorde
Edgar Degas · 1875
Peasant Women with Brushwood
Jean-François Millet · 1852
Sources
Invite the State Hermitage Museum into your living room
