Hermitage Portico with Atlantes, Portico of the New Hermitage on Millionnaya Street, Saint Petersburg, Russia

The Hermitage Portico with Atlantes is an entrance to the New Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg formed by ten monumental granite figures standing on pedestals. The sculptures support a balcony with their heads and hands and create a continuous row along the facade.

In 1843 Leo von Klenze submitted two portico drawings to the Winter Palace restoration commission; the male atlantes were chosen over caryatids, modelled on the telamones of the Temple of Zeus at Agrigento. Sculptor Alexander Terebenev directed about 150 stonemasons for two years and finished the faces himself; the figures were installed by 1 September 1848. Cracks from foundation settlement appeared in 1909 and recurred in 1914, 1921, 1948, 1976, 1987, 1997 and 2000.

The atlantes gave Alexander Gorodnitsky the title and refrain of his song "Atlanty", which became a St Petersburg standard. The figures also echo the telamones of the Temple of Zeus at Agrigento, and Klenze had the same motif carved inside the Hall of Cameos and the Second Hall of Medals, where their outline follows the ancient model more closely than the exterior statues do.

The portico faces Millionnaya Street on the south facade of the New Hermitage, and the atlantes can be seen from the pavement without a museum ticket. The figures stand on rapakivi granite pedestals above a stepped reddish-brown base, with the central staircase rising between them. The Kirnovsky limestone of the pylons, frieze and balcony columns was painted over during the 2000 restoration, so its natural colour and texture are no longer visible.

In December 1941 during the Siege of Leningrad an artillery shell struck the portico and severely damaged one of the figures. The scar of that destruction remains visible on the sculpture today and testifies to the wartime history of the city.