The inaugural exhibition of Hermitage Amsterdam, At the Russian Court: Palace and Protocol in the 19th Century, promises to be one of the most lavish ever presented in Europe, and one of the largest. With more than 1,800 objects on loan from the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, the exhibition will fill the Amstelhof—the historic, newly restored home of Hermitage Amsterdam--from 20 June 2009 to 31 January 2010, as it recreates life at the Russian court during the nineteenth century: a period that spanned the reigns of six tsars, from the little-known Paul I, son of Catherine the Great, to the tragic Nicholas II, the last tsar of Russia.