The museum was founded in 1920 on the site of a closed New Jerusalem Monastery. The core collection was formed as a result of the nationalization of estates and private collections. During the 1920's with the intention of taking in State of paintings, artistic furniture, china and other valuables were examined are located near Istra estate of Russian aristocracy: Ilinskoe (vel. book. Romanov SA), Peter (Golitsyn), Nikolskoye (Gagarin ) Glebovo (Brusilov), Christmas (Tolstoy). In the late 1920's paintings, furniture and porcelain manor were transferred to the "New Jerusalem" from the private suburban museums, mansions Nikolskoe Urupino and Dubrovitsy. Until 1937 Istra museum replenish their funds out of 16 former estates.

Features of collection allowed most of the exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery to devote Russian estate culture XVIII-XIX centuries. Among the imported masterpieces - the work of F. Rokotov, VATropinin, NG Chernetsova, as well as a unique portrait of the XVIII century Ivan Loktev - perhaps the image of his teacher, the first Russian genre painter Ivan Firsov. One of the central places in the exhibition is "Portrait of Princess Smaragd (Mary) Cantemir" brush Nikitin, entering service in 1937 from the Lenin museum of local lore in Tsaritsyno.
The exhibition includes the best purchase of 1970-1980-ies: pictures NI Argunova, MN Vorobyov, watercolors KA Gorbunova, PF Sokolova.
In the arts and crafts console table are mahogany, made in the beginning of the XIX century on sketches A. Voronikhin, and porcelain of two famous Russian companies - Imperial Porcelain Factory and Plant AG Popov.
A special section of the exhibition are paintings by Konstantin Gorbatov (1876-1945) - known in the pre-revolutionary Russia landscape painter, who left Russia in 1922. Istra museum holds a large collection of his paintings and records provided by a bequest of the artist in the Soviet Union in Berlin in 1964.

The exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery allows you to show and the best collections of paintings from the first half of XX century, which is actively formed in the "New Jerusalem" since 1977. In this series, one of the masterpieces of Leonid Pasternak - a portrait A.B.Vysotskoy-Gotz, whose daughter, Boris Pasternak dedicated the poem "Marburg". Small but bright section Russian avant-garde art and non art 1920-1930-ies include the work of prominent artists - such as Richard Falk, A. Osmerkin, AV Shevchenko, AN Volkov, A . F. Sofronova, D. Gurevich.