The State Tretyakov Gallery is a museum of world significance, with collections running into many thousands of works of art, from Old Russia icons to contemporary paintings. The collection of the Tretyakov brothers was opened to the public as a private museum in 1874 and it immediately became widely popular.
It includes such great masterpieces as the famous Old Testament, Trinity, the only original icon by Andrei Rublev, a number of other icons attributed to Rublev and Theophanes the Greek, and a collection of outstanding works of 16th century Russian icon painting. Another section of the gallery is devoted to the second half of the 19th century, and paintings of Russian realist art produced by the famous artists community of Peredvizhniki.
