Great Art Treasures of the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

Sampling the treasures of one of the world's greatest art museums, this extraordinary, gorgeously illustrated two-volume slipcased catalogue of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia, sweeps from Paleolithic mammoth ivory birds carved in Malta some 22,000 years ago to paintings by Rembrandt, El Greco, Raphael, Poussin, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Caspar David Friedrich, Picasso, Bonnard and Kandinsky. More than 1500 color plates-accompanied by informal commentaries and linked by short essays contributed by 90 Hermitage curators-showcase the museum's diverse collections in painting, sculpture (Rodin, Michelangelo, Bernini) and European drawings and prints (Durer, Degas, Redon, Kathe Kollwitz). Among the astonishing antiquities are idols and petroglyphs of ancient Russian forest tribes, mural paintings from Huns' burial mounds in Mongolia, Scythian clothes and utensils and Roman marble sculptures. Decorative and applied arts include textiles, mosaics, glassware, ceramics, jewelry, coins and arms and armor from Russia and around the world. Suslov is former director of the Hermitage. (Dec.)