The Kadriorg Art Museum introduces, preserves and collects early foreign art – primarily western European and Russian paintings, graphic arts, sculpture and applied arts. The museum is located in Kadriorg Park in Tallinn, in a Baroque palace built by Tsar Peter the Great of Russia as a summer residence.
The Kadriorg Art Museum is the only museum in Estonia devoted to foreign art. Estonia’s largest collection of western European and Russian art (about 9,000 works of art from the 16th to 20th centuries) is located here. The Mikkel Museum houses the collection of paintings, graphic arts and porcelain donated to the museum by the private collector Johannes Mikkel (1907–2006).
The Kadriorg Art Museum has an extensive permanent exhibition, which displays the best of its foreign art collection. In addition, there are revolving exhibitions that deal with early European art and its history. The objectives of the Kadriorg Art Museum and its exhibition activities are to introduce the world’s art legacy and the creation of local collections in an international context, as well as to mediate ways of viewing and interpreting early art. Along with exhibitions, the museum’s publications and spring conferences also deal with topical issues of art history.
