Pictures at an Exhibition is a suite of ten pieces (plus a recurring, varied Promenade) composed for piano by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874. The composition is based on pictures by the artist, architect, and designer Viktor Hartmann. They likely met in the home of the influential critic Vladimir Stasov, who followed both of their careers with interest. Stasov helped to organize a memorial exhibition of over 400 Hartmann works in the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg in February and March 1874. Mussorgsky was inspired to compose Pictures at an Exhibition, quickly completing the score in three weeks (2–22 June 1874). The music depicts his tour of the exhibition, with each of the ten numbers of the suite serving as a musical illustration of an individual work by Hartmann. The recurring Promenade refrain was used to symbolize the "viewer" of the exhibition moving from one painting to another.