As part of the year of cultural exchanges between Russia and Greece, the Hermitage State Museum in St Petersburg is sending some of its exhibits to the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens.

On November 2, 2016 a major exhibition begins, essentially bringing a mini Hermitage Museum to Athens through to the end of February 2017.

A total of 160 exhibits will be presented in the large hall in the basement of the museum and the exhibition spaces of Villa Ilisia. Among the pieces on show are works by  Delacroix and Rubens, the famous Scythian Hermitage, representative works from all periods of European art and objects from the East.

The Hermitage Museum has around three million objects in its collection and about 100,000 pieces from antiquity. It is the largest museum in the world and also one of the oldest. The Hermitage is considered to have been founded in 1764, when Empress Catherine the Great acquired an impressive collection of works from the Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky.

Its collections rarely travel overseas, making this a unique opportunity to enjoy the treasures of the museum which would otherwise require a trip to St Petersburg.