Images that survived the French Revolution are among the 100 drawings of French ornamentalists of the 17th and 18th centuries on display at the Hermitage.
One such image is a sketch of the main altar of the St Germain des Pres Cathedral in Paris by Jille-Marie Oppenort, one of the founders of the rococo stye.
Several dozen artists participated in the decoration of the St Germain Cathedral, which became a masterpiece. Oppenort's sketch, dated around 1703, was implemented into the altar.
During the French Revolution from 1791-1794, the altar was destroyed, and only a few sketches can give any idea of what the original was like. Oppenort's sketch is among those.
According to Valery Shevchenko, the scientific researcher of the Hermitage and the exhibition organizer, this is the first time the sketch has been displayed.
The 100 drawings on display were selected out of more than 600 kept in the Hermitage archives. The museum acquired them in the 1920s from the library of the Baron Stigliz College and French collections.
Among the artists on display are Charles Lebrun, Jean Lepautre, Jean Berain L'Aine, Antoine Watteau and Nicolas Pineau (for a while Pineau worked in St Petersburg).
Most of the sketches were last seen by the public in the beginning of the 1800s.
Ornamental drawings did not have any public value until the middle of the 17th century.
It is a conventional name for a range of art in progress -- instant pen sketches, which fix an idea, or represent the development of an idea. Sometimes it is not meant to be developed at all, but exists on its own.
The Hermitage is planning to expand the French ornamentalists exhibition -- the next displays will include drawings dated from the last half of the 18th century.