Museum of Russian Icons, Religious art museum in Tagansky District, Moscow, Russia.
The Museum of Russian Icons occupies two former apartment buildings on Goncharnaya Street, restored in 2010 and joined by a glass atrium. Its collection of about 5,000 items includes nearly 1,000 icons, mainly Russian works of the 14th to early 20th centuries, with a noted group of 15th–16th-century Pskov icons and a large Ethiopian Christian art collection.
The museum opened in May 2006 in a hall of the Vereyskaya Plaza business centre, founded by businessman Mikhail Abramov, who had begun collecting ancient icons in 2003. In 2010 the collection moved to Goncharnaya Street, where two dilapidated apartment buildings were restored and joined by a glass atrium; the new building opened on 25 January 2011. Abramov died in a helicopter crash near Poros, Greece, on 20 August 2019.
The museum's name comes from its focus on Russian icons of the 14th to early 20th centuries, with a prized group of 15th- and 16th-century Pskov icons. Its founder Mikhail Abramov bought icons at Western antique salons, private collections and auctions to bring them back to Russia. Entry, guided tours, lectures and concerts are free, and the museum is funded only by its founder.
The museum stands at Goncharnaya Street 3, building 1, in the Tagansky District, a short walk from the Taganskaya metro station. It is open daily except Wednesday from 11:00 to 19:00, and admission, guided tours, lectures and concerts are free. Two former apartment buildings were restored and joined by a glass atrium.
The museum holds one of the world's largest collections of Ethiopian Christian art, over 2,500 pieces: processional, pectoral and priestly crosses, icons, manuscripts and scrolls, liturgical vessels, vestments, weapons and musical instruments. It also keeps a carved Greek iconostasis of the late 17th to early 18th century with 19 icons, among them a mid-15th-century Mother of God Glykophilousa from the workshop of Angelos Akotantos.
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