Master stroke brings great artists

An exquisite collection of drawings and paintings, including works by Ingres, Matisse and Picasso, is to go on show in Somerset House from November.

The exhibition - French Drawings and Paintings from the Hermitage: Poussin to Picasso - features artwork from the 16th century and will be brought to London from Russia's State Hermitage Museum.

Around 75 works from the St Petersburg museum's 40,000-strong collection of French drawings and paintings will be brought together in The Hermitage Rooms of Somerset House.

The first gallery will be dominated by Nicolas Poussin's Trancred and Erminia. Four of Poussin's drawings will also be on display, including Dromedary and The Conversion of St Paul. The gallery will also feature four drawings from the Mannerist artist Jacques de Bellange, as well as a painting, The Lamentation, which is dated at 1616. There are no known Bellanges currently held in any British collection.

The second gallery will host 18th century artists, including Claude Lorrain, Antoine Watteau, and Francois Boucher: a rare "pure" landscape painting, Landscape with a Pond, will also be on show.

Works from the 19th and 20th century will dominate another gallery, including works by Ingres, Manet and Degas.

Lydia Delectorskaya, who was Henri Matisse's model and assistant in his later years, presented her entire collection of his works to the Hermitage. Five of his drawings of her - as well as an oil portrait painted in 1947, in which her face is divided into yellow and blue sides - will be included in the exhibition.

Picasso's Brick Factory in Tortosa will be on show, as will his gouache Boy with a Dog.

Evening Standard Art Critic Brian Sewell said: "This is is an exhibition that will be greeted with great enthusiasm by everyone interested in Old Master drawings."

French Drawings and Paintings from the Hermitage: Poussin to Picasso is at The Hermitage Rooms of Somerset House from November