For the first time on display in the exhibition rooms was the unique complex of Masonic monuments.
Masonic carpet
Russia. Late 18th century.
Silk; painting
From 17 May till 1 September 2013 the State Hermitage hosted an exhibition, where the whole range of the unique Masonic monuments kept at the Museum, was displayed for the first time. The display, which contained new evidence of well-established world’s Masonic systems active in Russia in the 18th – first third of the 19th century, allowed to enrich the study of this research area with the newly acquired facts.
On view were the items from two well-known collections of D.G. Burylin and F.M. Plyushkin. Among them one could see the symbolic attributes of the Masonic Fraternity, aprons, gloves, baldrics, spattles, compasses, plumb lines, hammers and other manual tools associated with the legend of the ancient builders of the mystic Temple of Solomon. The exhibition showcased foreign and Russian literature, manuscripts with the descriptions of the rituals, songbooks which once served as guidance for “work” supervision in the Russian lodges, patents issued to form lodges, certificates of initiation into Freemasonry and passage to the Masonic degrees and systems, as well as the portraits of prominent figures and ideologists of the “old” Russian Freemasonry. Exhibited were also various symbols made, in accordance with the prescribed ritual, of expensive fabrics with symbolic prints and embroideries, items made of metal, stone, bone and other materials decorated with the chased and carved coded symbols of Masonic lodges and degrees.
Over 400 exhibits intended for various purposes vividly demonstrated that the ideas of Masonry gained popularity with the wide circles of Russian society, which found its reflection in the numerous cultural artefacts of the 18th – the first third of the 19th centuries.
