The collection of graphics of the State historical and cultural museum-preserve “The Moscow Kremlin” is tightly connected with the history of the Moscow Kremlin, its monuments, architectural buildings and exhibits reserved inside the Kremlin’s walls. The graphic fund is very young. In 1961, it became a part of the science archive which, besides documents, included architectural graphics and depictive materials made on the basis of paper. At the moment, the collection of graphics numbers more than 5000 items dated from the XVII to the 90-s of the XX century. The composition of the collection is characterized by wideness and variety of materials. These are drawings, water-colour sketches, drafts, gravures and lithographs. Among them the views of the Moscow Kremlin and images of its numerous monuments are prevalent. The biggest authorial collection including over 1400 artworks is the collection of water-colours and drawings of antiquities of the Russian State, created by F.G. Solntsev, a painter and archaeologist, in 1830-1840. The collection of architectural graphics numbers more than 2000 exhibits. They are chiefly drafts of the Moscow Kremlin: plans, facades, sections, measures of cathedrals, palaces, walls, towers and other constructions. Some of them have not survived. The authors of these drafts and drawings were famous architects of the XVIII-XIX centuries, such as V.I. Bazhenov, M.D. Bykovsky, P.A. Gerasimov, I.V. Yegotov, I.L. Mironovsky, F.F. Richter, V.P. Stasov, K.A. Ton, D.V. Uchtomsky, N.I. Chichagov, N.A. Shochin and others. There are more than 500 drafts of 1940-1970s among the architectural materials of the fund which belong to the auxiliary science fund.

The water-colour sketches and drawings were painted by such artists of the XVIII-XIX century as F.Ya. Alexeev, V.M. Vasnetsov, I.A. Weis, V.S. Sadovnikov, K.A. Uchtomsky. Among the materials on restoration of the Kremlin’s cathedrals there are about 50 drawings on calque painted from the murals of the Annunciation Cathedral created by artist N.M. Safonov in 1884.