State Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin,
one of the leading Russian museums of world art,
was created on the basis of the Cabinet of Fine Arts
and Antiquities of Moscow University as an
educational and public educational institution. In
Russia, it became the first museum of this type. As it
was practiced in the European university museums
of the time, the main stages in the history of art
from ancient times to modern times were presented
in plaster casts, mockups and galvanic copies
according to a single scientific program.
At the end of 1896, the conditions of the
Competition for the design of the building for the
Museum of Fine Arts named after Emperor
Alexander III at Moscow University, which was held
by the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts at the request
of the university, were published in the capital press.
From that moment, the realization of the long-held
dream of creating an art-educational public
museum in Moscow began.
Projects to create such a museum in Moscow were
put forward as early as the 19th century by Princess
Z.A. Volkonskaya and S.P. Shevyrev (1831), Professor
K.K. Hertz (1858), director of the Moscow Public
Rumyantsev Museum N.V. Isakov (1864). Ivan
Vladimirovich Tsvetaev, Professor Emeritus of
Moscow University, Doctor of Roman Literature,
managed to embody this idea. Having created the
Museum, he became its first director (1911–1913).
Near the Kremlin, on the territory of the former
Kolymazhny yard, in 1895-1896. donated to the
university by the Moscow City Duma, a museum
building was erected by the architect Roman
Ivanovich Klein (1858-1924) in 1898–1912, mainly
with donations collected.