The State Museum of Furniture

The State Museum of Furniture was founded in Moscow in 1919. It was located in the mansion of V. O. Hirschman whose furniture collection initially formed the basis of this Museum. In the spring of 1920, the Museum moved to the Alexandrinsky Palace. The Museum’s collection had constantly been enlarged and by 1927 numbered about 3,000 exhibits of the 15th-20th centuries. There were displayed some items received from Moscow and Moscow-area palaces, manor houses, and city apartments; in addition to metropolitan furniture workshops, there were presented, in a significant number, pieces of work of country craftsmen. Created in this way, the Museum of Furniture was a unique, first in the country special collection where the furniture took up the position of an object of art. In the spring of 1927, the Museum of Furniture was closed down.

The State Museum of Furniture, A.I. Batenin, art of furniture, the Alexandrinsky Palace, organization of a museum, Russian furniture, foreign furniture, artistic museum, exposition

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2. Zents E. M. Istoriya odnoi kollektsii. Voprosy istorii [Issues of History], 1968, No. 7, pp. 205—206.

3. Leningradskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva (LGALI), f. 36, op. 2, d. 3, l. 61—85.

4. Novikova E. B. Inter’er obshchestvennykh zdanii: khudozhestvennye problemy. Moscow, 1984, 272 p.

5. Otdel pis’mennykh istochnikov Gosudarstvennogo istoricheskogo muzeya [State Historical Museum — Archives], f. 54, d. 23, l. 290.

6. Otdel pis’mennykh istochnikov Gosudarstvennogo istoricheskogo muzeya [State Historical Museum — Archives], f. 54. d. 236.

7. Otdel pis’mennykh istochnikov Gosudarstvennogo istoricheskogo muzeya [State Historical Museum — Archives], f. 54, d. 519.

8. Otdel pis’mennykh istochnikov Gosudarstvennogo istoricheskogo muzeya [State Historical Museum — Archives]. f. 54, d. 804.