The Museum of Foreign Art, a branch of the Yaroslavl Art Museum, was opened on April 29, 2014. Its collection includes paintings, graphics, sculptures, furniture, and decorative applied arts from European countries and the East. This exhibition expands the understanding of Yaroslavl's urban culture, demonstrating the interest of Russians in the global artistic process and showcasing Yaroslavl as a city integrated into the world cultural space.

The museum is located in the Sorokina House, an architectural monument from the first third of the 19th century, built in 1816 in the classical style. Before the revolution, the house belonged to Zinaida Sergeevna Sorokina, a representative of a well-known Yaroslavl merchant family and the wife of the city architect Alexander Alexandrovich Nikiforov. During the Soviet era, it housed a school for the deaf, a party archive, and a hotel. In 2010, the building was transferred to the Yaroslavl Art Museum.

The museum halls feature not only works by European and Eastern masters created for palaces but also pieces that adorned middle-class homes. The exhibition covers the period from the 16th to the early 20th century and includes art from the Netherlands, Italy, France, Germany, and Eastern countries from the collection of the Yaroslavl Art Museum.

The museum's collection has been formed throughout the history of the Yaroslavl Art Museum. It includes purchases of European works for merchant and noble mansions from pre-revolutionary times, art objects brought from Europe in the 1940s and 1960s, as well as gifts and acquisitions made by the museum from the late 1960s to the present.

An exhibition hall and a garden of exotic plants on the territory of the Sorokina House complement the permanent exhibition, reflecting the development stage of Russian garden and park art associated with the fascination for exotic plants. In the late 19th century, a tradition emerged to plant trees and shrubs in parks and gardens that were not characteristic of the middle Russian flora. Currently, the garden features maples, Manchurian walnuts, several species of cherry blossoms brought from the Japanese island of Hokkaido, Kuril cherries, mountain pines, and small-leaved linden trees. Bright accents are created by spireas and decorative flowering shrubs.

In 2015, for the creation of the Museum of Foreign Art, employees of the Yaroslavl Art Museum Alexey Viktorovich Fedorchuk, Tatyana Albertovna Lebedeva, and Lyudmila Nikolaevna Makareva were awarded the regional I.A. Tikhomirov Prize for achievements in the field of culture.