The exhibition Collector’s Cabinet displays the collectors’ taste for Old Masters, mainly Flemish and Dutch paintings. The exhibition includes paintings by Early Netherlandish, Dutch, Flemish, Belgian and German paintings from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. Works by David Teniers the Younger, Pieter van Noort, Lucas van Uden, Jan Wellens de Cock, Jan van Goyen, Simon Kick, Johannes Rosiers, Eduard von Grützner are on show.

Paintings of small and medium formats, presented in the exposition, that decorated the walls of offices  were called “cabinets” in the seventeenth century. Such collections of collectors or, as they were also called, connoisseurs, served as prototypes of museums.

The exhibition follows the tradition of collectors of the past, combining religious, allegorical, literary and genre scenes, as well as landscapes, animal paintings and still lifes. The scenes, the bright colors, the miniature representation, the philosophical content and the good-natured humor of the paintings contributed to a leisurely look and thoughtful contemplation.

It was this type of cabinet painting that was acquired by Russian collectors before the revolution of 1917, among them – Peter I, Catherine II, Dmitry Ivanovich Shchukin, Heinrich Afanasyevich Brokar, Pavel Petrovich Vyazemsky, aristocratic families Shuvalov, Stroganovs, Yusupov, Sheremetev and others. Their traditions are continued by modern collectors, whose collections are exhibited in the Center for Art. Moscow.