The marble palace was commissioned in 1768 by Catherine II, as a gift to Count Orlov. It gets its name from the many different types of marble used to decorate both its interior and exterior. In April 1992, the palace became a filial of the Russian Museum and today is dedicated to exhibitions celebrating relations between Russian and Western art. On one floor the museum has two permanent exhibits: 'Foreign Artists in Russia' looks at the foreign masters whose work influenced Russian art in the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries; and 'Peter Ludvig in the Russian Museum' is a private collection of Russian and Western art 1949 - 1989 that was donated to the Russian Museum by the collection owner. The other floor of the palace is used for temporary exhibits of contemporary art from all over the world