The State Tretyakov Gallery is one of the largest museums of Russian art in the country. Its foundation was laid by the Moscow merchant and industrialist Pavel Tretyakov who amassed an excellent collection of national art and donated it to the city of Moscow in 1892.
Intended by its founder to be a museum in which Russian artists of all trends were to be represented, the Tretyakov Gallery boasts a unique collection of early Russian icons, masterpieces of 18th- and 19th-century painting and most outstanding works by 20th-century Russian and Soviet artists.
Today the State Tretyakov Gallery is a large museum complex with its main building lying on its original site, in quiet Lavrushensky Lane in the very centre of Moscow, and another one located on Krymsky Val and housing best 20th-century artworks. Its branches (House-Museum of Victor Vasnetsov, Memorial Studio of Anna Golubkina, Museum Church of St Nicholas in Tolmachi and others) highlight most important phenomena in the history of Russian art.