Facing Millionnaya ul, the New Hermitage was built for Nicholas II in 1852, to hold the growing art collection and as a museum for the public. Designed by German neoclassicist architect and painter von Klenze, the historically preserved rooms house the museum's collections of ancient art, European paintings, sculptures and decorative art.
The New Hermitage's original entrance has a portico supported by monumental Atlantes carved from grey granite in the workshop of Alexander Terebenev.
On the building's 2nd floor is Room 227, a gallery designed by Giacomo Quarenghi in 1792 to house the Raphael Loggias, copies of the original frescoes in the Vatican, Rome, that had so impressed Catherine the Great on her visit there.
