During the period of the initial organization of the museum and the first post-revolutionary years, its collection of painting was augmented by works from the Hermitage, the Academy of Arts, major private collections and former palaces. The museum was also already acquiring works directly from exhibitions and artists' studios at the very start of the century. After the closure of the Museum of Art Culture in 1926, its collection of mostly avant-garde art was inherited by the Russian Museum almost in its entirety. Later, the collection was added to by gifts from collectors, artists and members of their families, as well as by acquisitions.The Russian Museum's collection of paintings by artists working in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries currently numbers more than 10,000 works.

	I.Nikitin. Portrait of a Field Hetman. 1720s	Louis Caravaque. Portrait of the Tsarevna Anne Petrovna and the Tsarevna Elisabeth Petrovna. 1717	I.Vishnyakov. Portrait of Sarah Eleonora Fairmore. 1749(50?)
	A.Antropov. Portrait of Rumyantseva. 1764	D.Levitsky. Portrait of A.F.Kokorinov. 1769	Unknown Artist. The Building of the Twelve Ministries in Saint-PÅtersburg. Third quarter of the XVIII century.
	F.Rokotov. Portrait of Countess Yelizaveta Santi. 1785.	D.Levitsky. Portrait of Yekaterina Khruschova and Yekaterina Khovanskaya. 1773 (not later)	D.Levitsky. Portrait of Catherine II – the Legislatress in the Temple of the Goddess of Justice. 1783

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