The Benois Wing of the Russian Museum hosted the first major retrospective exhibition dedicated to Viktor Vasnetsov in 30 years, marking the 175th anniversary of the artist’s birth.

The exhibition brought together around 120 works by Vasnetsov from leading Russian museums, including the Russian Museum, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Viktor Vasnetsov House Museum, the Vasnetsov Brothers Vyatka Art Museum, the Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum, the Abramtsevo Museum-Reserve, the Vasily Polenov Museum-Reserve, the State Museum of the History of Religion, and others. The exhibition featured some of Vasnetsov’s best-known paintings inspired by Russian epic poetry and fairy tales, such as Alyonushka (1881, State Tretyakov Gallery), Ivan Tsarevich Riding the Grey Wolf (1889, State Tretyakov Gallery), The Flying Carpet (Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum), Knight at the Crossroads (1882, Russian Museum), The Battle of the Scythians and the Slavs (1881, Russian Museum), and others.

For the first time, audiences in St Petersburg had the opportunity to see The Frog Princess (1918, Viktor Vasnetsov House Museum), one of the finest works from the Poem of Seven Fairy Tales cycle.