The building that previously housed the museum of Princess Tenisheva, "Russian Antiquity," is a monument of architecture and a cultural heritage site. Before the revolution, it was home to a historical and ethnographic museum founded by Princess Maria Klavdievna Tenisheva, and later, an art gallery. The building, constructed between 1903 and 1905 in the neo-Russian style, is located near the city center at the intersection of Tenisheva and Isakovsky streets. It was specifically built to house Tenisheva's collection, which was previously located in the village of Talashkino and included thousands of exhibits related to history, decorative and applied arts, as well as icons, manuscripts, and weapons.

Initially, Tenisheva planned to move the collection to Smolensk and place it in the Nikolskaya Tower of the Smolensk fortress wall, but restorer Pyotr Petrovich Pokryshkin opposed this. Then, Princess Svyatopolchertinskaya, a friend of Tenisheva, provided a plot of land for the museum's construction, and in 1905, the collection was housed in the new building. In 1911, Tenisheva transferred her collection to the Moscow Archaeological Institute, whose branch opened in Smolensk in 1910, and the building was also handed over to the institute. The main author of the building's design was artist Sergey Vasilyevich Malyutin, and Tenisheva herself participated in the design alongside artist Viktor Vasnetsov. The museum building is considered one of the best examples of neo-Russian style in the Smolensk region. It is a two-story cube with basements and a mezzanine facing the rear. A vestibule adjoins the main volume from the west, with facades designed by artists Zinovyev and Beketov. Between the basement and the first floor is a band of ornamental brickwork. The frieze, cornice of the vestibule, and shaped window frames are made of white brick. Above the main entrance in the tympanum, among the floral ornamentation, are the monogram of Tenisheva "MT," the year construction began "1903," and the inscription "Russian Antiquity." The building was originally adorned with colored glass and a tiled roof. Inside, there are eight large exhibition halls with brick vaults without doors.

After the revolution, the museum's property was nationalized. In May 1920, an art gallery opened in the former provincial zemstvo administration building, which merged with the historical and ethnographic museum in 1931 and was housed in the Tenisheva museum building, receiving the name of the Museum of Fine Arts named after Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya. The museum became part of the State Budgetary Institution "Smolensk State Reserve Museum."

Since 2010, the Smolensk Art Gallery has been located in the former building of the Alexandrov Real School at 4 Kommunisticheskaya Street. At that time, the "Russian Antiquity" building housed the "Smolensk Linen" museum, which later moved to the Nikolskaya Tower. There are plans to recreate the "Russian Antiquity" museum at 7 Tenisheva Street.