Museum of Private Collections, Art museum in Moscow, Russia.

The Museum of Private Collections is a department of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, established in 1985 on the initiative of director Irina Antonova and collector Ilya Zilberstein. It opened in 1994 and since 2005 has occupied the restored Volkhonka 8 estate, joined in 2013 by a second building at Volkhonka 10 linked by a glass atrium. Its enfilade of rooms displays over 7,000 works of Russian and Western European art from the 15th to 20th centuries, each room devoted to a single donor's collection.

The museum opened in 1994 with the goal of bringing private collections into public view, since many had been kept hidden during the Soviet period. Some of the collections were built quietly over decades by people who had no official connection to the art world.

The works on display once belonged to private individuals, which gives each room a personal character rather than an institutional feel. Walking through the galleries, you get a sense of one person's taste rather than a curated state collection.

The museum sits in central Moscow close to the other buildings of the Pushkin complex, so you can combine a visit with nearby sites in the same area. Since the displays change regularly, it is worth checking what is currently on show before you arrive.

Unlike most public museums, the works here are arranged the way each collector chose to live with them, sometimes crowded together and without strict order. This gives the rooms a feeling closer to a private home than to a traditional gallery.