MIKHAIL KOZLOVSKY

The Mikhail Kozlovsky (1753 — 1802) exhibition is dedicated to the 250th birthday anniversary of one of the leading artists of the eighteenth century. The Russian Museum owns the largest collection of his sculptural and graphic works. The famous marble statues by Kozlovsky Vigil of Alexander the Great, Catherine II as Minerva, Cupid, Hymen, traditionally exhibited on the Main Staircase of the Mikhailovsky Palace, have been supplemented at the exhibition with the easel works from the museum storages and his unique terracotta studies on the theme of the Trojan War. The range of artistic imagery is exceptionally wide: from dramatic tension of Polykrates to heroicized pathos of Jacob Dolgorukov or delicate lyricism of Psyche. The marble statue of Philoctète loaned by the Priyutino Museum Estate of Literature and Art will become a true revelation for the visitors of the exhibition. The work will be first exhibited within the context of Kozlovsky's oeuvre alongside his drawings on the same theme. Thirty-six drawings manifest the graphic gift of Kozlovsky. The earliest of them were executed in the 1770s, the period of his trip to Italy as a pensioner while the latest works date back to the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the monument to generalissimo Alexander Suvorov was erected on the Field of Mars. The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue introducing many of the sculptor's drawings which have never been published before.