As the second-largest museum in the world, it is also one of the most visited and home toa reported three million objects. W. Bulach via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0With exhibitions spanning nearly 720,000 square feet, Russias State Hermitage Museum is home to one of the largest known art collections. But the museum, which first opened its St. Petersburg doors to the public on February 5, 1852, originated with one woman with a powerful interest in the arts.The museums origins date back to Russian Empress Catherine the Great, a lover of the arts who wrote plays and childrens literature. In 1764, nearly a century before the State Hermitages public opening, she founded the museum with an initial collection of paintings that included Rembrandts Descent From the Cross and Frans Hals Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Glove. These paintings317 in totalprompted the empress to expand the Winter Palace, a building significant in its own right for housing Romanov family leaders, to make room for her growing collection.Catherines collection soon ballooned as the empress amassed 4,000 paintings, 38,000 books, 10,000 engraved gems, 10,000 drawings, and 16,000 coins and medals. She also added to the museums physical footprint. The State Hermitage Museum now consists of six main buildings including the Winter Palace, Small Hermitage, Old Hermitage, Hermitage Theater and the New Hermitage. Construction on the New Hermitage, designed by Leo von Klenze, ended in 1851. The museum officially opened its doors just a few months later. It is now home to a reported three million objects.Though the name hermitage refers to the home of a recluse, the museum is anything but isolated. As the second-largest museum in the world, it is also one of the most visited. Visitors can study Iron Age artifacts from the Caucasus territories, an exact replica of the Gallery in Romes Papal Palace and one of the worlds largest collections of paintings from Flemish artists like Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens.Other noteworthy objects on display include the Kolyvan Vasea 19-ton sculpture of solid jade that took 770 workers to installand James Coxs Peacock Clock, a lavish automaton featuring life-size gilded birds.The Hermitage may be home to thousands of historical artifacts, but it is also home to more modern art and experimental temporary exhibitions. In 2013, for instance, the museum hosted From Guercino to Caravaggio to cater for more refined tastes of both the masses and the gourmets with works from famous Italian artists but also an exploration of a British collector of Italian art, Denis Mahon.Thanks to another Russian empress, the museum has something else to offer: cats. Years after Catherine turned the Winter Palace into the palatial museum it is today, the empress Elizabeth I decreed that cats be brought from Kazan, nearly 1,000 miles southeast of St. Petersburg, to catch mice in its basement. Now, hundreds of years later, at least 50 cats remain under the care of Hermitage staff. The museum employs veterinarians and even a feline-focused press secretary. For some visitors, the elusive cats are far more interesting than the art itself, under the care of Hermitage staff. The museum employs veterinarians and even a feline-focused press secretary. For some visitors, the elusive cats are far more interesting than the art itself.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Art, European History, Fine Arts, Museums, On This Day in History, Russia