Big picture: Guardians of Russian art museums, by Andy Freeberg

Russian realist Yuri Kugach’s 1961 oil painting Before The Dance is an evocative study of young women waiting nervously for a party to begin. But few would argue anything is lost by the inclusion, in Andy Freeberg’s photograph, of a sober woman guarding it in Moscow’s State Tretyakov Gallery. With her hands folded in her lap and a scarf slung around her neck, she uncannily mimics the group of women in the painting. → Photograph: Andy Freeberg

A woman guarding a set of animal still lifes in the wood-panelled Stroganov Palace in St Petersburg is, with her elegant bun and aristocratic features, worthy of a portrait herself. → Photograph: Andy Freeberg

And the guard by a case of ancient Egyptian mummy masks in Moscow’s Pushkin Museum resembles her frozen-faced charges. → Photograph: Andy Freeberg

New York-born Freeberg first spotted these seated guards while wandering through the Hermitage, and was struck by how they unconsciously resembled the artworks in their care. “I found them as intriguing as the pieces they watch over,” he says. They became a three-dimensional part of looking at the artworks themselves. → Photograph: Andy Freeberg

“Pretend I’m not here,” was his only instruction. In conversation, they told him how much they enjoyed being among Russia’s great art. A woman in the Tretyakov said she often returned on her day off to gaze at a painting that reminded her of her childhood home. → Photograph: Andy Freeberg

Another travels three hours each day to work, instead of sitting at home complaining about her illnesses “as old women do”. They may look serene, but these proud babushkas are the first line of defence against sticky fingers or would-be art thieves. And you wouldn’t even think about crossing them Photograph: Andy Freeberg