The Director's Choice series is an international project that invites the directors of the world's foremost museums to select exhibits that in their opinion occupy a special place in their museum's collection and to explain their significance. This sometimes paradoxical, but always interesting selection has been made by Mikhail Piotrovsky, who has been Director of the Hermitage for more than 25 years. It allows readers to take an unusual journey around the museum and to acquaint themselves both with world-famous works of Western European painting and with examples of ancient, Islamic and Russian art that, undeservedly, often escape the attention of the wider public.