The Museum of Private Collections is one of the youngest and most unusual museums in Russia. It was founded as the Department of Private Collections of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in July 1985. On January 24, 1994, the Museum of Private Collections opened its doors to visitors.

    The art collections donated to the Pushkin Museum by private collectors and by artists personally or their relatives are settled on two floors. The exposition of art collections is arranged in such a way that it keeps up the integrity of individual assemblies and the clarity of the initial concepts of their collectors. At the same time, special attention is paid to the personality, tastes and preferences of every collector.

    Since its foundation, the Museum has been donated about thirty collections to its funds. Currently, the museum collection counts more than seven thousand works of Russian and Western European art of the 15th-20th centuries. Those are paintings, graphic art works, and sculptures, as well as items of applied art and art photography. Collections vary in regards of their focus and structure. Some monographic and some thematic, they are divided according to the types of art.

    A special place in the collection is given to the unique collection of the museum's founder, I.S. Silberstein. With more than two thousand paintings and graphic art works, it occupies four rooms in the exposition. These are premium world-class works of art, performed in various techniques and genres, representing the creative heritage of both individual masters and several art associations. Such collections could even make independent museums.

The Museum Building  
The museum building, located at the address of 10, Volkhonka Street, has an interesting history. Consisting of two buildings, “The Dwelling House with Benches” is a monument of history and culture of the 18^th – 19^th centuries. It is located on the site of the former John the Forerunner Church, disassembled in 1793 due to its dilapidated condition.

    The first owner of the built manor was P.I. Glebov, an acquaintance of the Pushkins family. In 1804 the house passed into the possession of O. Shuvalova, the daughter of State Councilor A.F. Shuvalov. In 1812, during a fire, the house almost completely burnt down, but the brick walls remained. In 1817, the estate was sold to Princess A.P. Vyazemskaya, the daughter of the poet Pyotr Vyazemsky and a friend of Alexander Pushkin. Then the house passed to his son D.E. Vyazemsky.

It should be noted that in the 1850s, in the antique store of this house, M.A. Obolensky, a relative of the famous Decembrist under the same family name, a collector of ancient literary monuments and an archeograf, found and bought the famous portrait of Alexander Pushkin painted by Vasily Tropinin in 1827. From the middle of the 19^th century until the October Revolution, the house was owned by the Volkovs, a dynasty of large-scale Moscow bankers. In 1888, the mansion housed "The Society of Art and Literature", founded by Konstantin Stanislavsky, A. Fedotov, Fyodor Komissarzhevsky and Fyodor Sologub. From 1927 to 1932 it was the place for the "Presidium of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia”, as well as living quarters. In 1988, the buildings were given over by the Moscow Government to the management of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts.

Address: 10, Volkhonka Street, next to the Kropotkinskaya, Borovitskaya, and Lenin Library metro stations, Moscow.

The official website of the Museum of Private Collections