Peterhof State Museum

INTRODUCTION

Peterhof State Museum Reserve is one of the most visited and fascinating tourist destinations in Russia. It is the fountain capital of this huge country. Uniting more than thirty museums that are located on the territory of Peterhof, Alexandria, Strelna and Oranienbaum, this complex acquaints visitors with the great Russian past. The history of each Peterhof monument is quite unique, but seen in their original settings they display a natural synthesis of history, art, architecture, and human destiny. In these towns’ planning, their regular and landscape parks and their palaces of different styles, the decorative features and fountains find their best structural implementation. The famous water supply system, which has no analogous constructions in the world, reminds us of its creator, emperor Peter the Great. The Peterhof collections, accumulated by the royal owners of the residence, include various items, each carrying the warmth of a human soul.

had nothing to do with the biblical Samson. But the substitution of the powerful athlete for the nondescript Roman priest was so spectacular that Peter agreed with Theophan. The society also accepted this version and since then the biblical hero became inseparable from the victory at Poltava. On Peter’s order the Encomium was published in Russian, Polish and Latin, and returning to the documented history of St. Sampson the Hospitable became out of the question.

In 1735, the sculpture of Samson was cast in lead by C.B. Rastrelli and put up in front of the Grand Cascade, but by the end of the century it fell into decay. Emperor Paul I therefore decided to replace it with a bronze group designed by the master of Russian neoclassicism, Mikhail Kozlovsky. The model of the pedestal was created by Andrei Voronikhin.

Although Paul I was not destined to see the new fountain, it remained the symbol of Russian power and glory, adorning Peterhof until the Second World War. During the German occupation of Peterhof, the original Kozlovsky sculpture was stolen by the Nazis and never recovered. In 1947, on the basis of pre-war documents and photographs, sculptors Simonov and Mikhailov recreated Samson, and the restored ensemble of the Grand Cascade acquired a new life. Today this third Samson is the main symbol of the fountain residence. One cannot imagine Peterhof without it.

Giovanni Bonazza

Adam, Italy, 1718

The Peterhof guardians, the paired Adam and Eve fountains, stand on Marly Avenue on either side of the Marine Canal. For his new residence Peter the Great ordered marble statues to be sourced from Italy, and in December 1717 his agent in Venice Savva Raguzinsky-Vladislavich reported that he had commissioned sculptures of Adam and Eve from ‘the best local master Bonazza,’ who worked in Venice, Treviso, Padua and other cities. In his studio, sculptor Giovanni Bonazza made replicas of the two statues that embellished the Doge’s Palace; works of Renaissance master Antonio Rizzo. In 1720, aboard the ship Armont, the statues were brought to Saint Petersburg where they were met by the overjoyed Tsar. Peter found a place for them in one of the most beautiful park avenues. According to his plan, they were supposed to become central to the layout of the radiating avenues and to unite the fountains of the eastern and western parts of the Lower Park into a single whole.

These sculptures of the first man and woman became related to Peter’s own history: in his view, the park had to be gracefully adorned not with the progenitors of the human race, but with the progenitors of the Russian Empire, the conquerors of the Baltic seashore – Emperor Peter I and his wife Empress Catherine I.

In autumn 1721, Peter supervised the final construction stages of the fountain composition designed by Niccolo Michetti. The Tsar approved the octagonal form of the basin and decided on the form of the pedestal. Around the cordon of the basin, sixteen water jets were installed to spurt water vertically high above the statue and then wash it over with falling water. The work had been completed by autumn 1723, and the Tsar himself could show the first man on the Earth, turned into a fountain, to foreign diplomats when they were invited see Peterhof for the first time.

The Adam Fountain turned out to be the final chord in the fountain symphony of Peter the Great.

Marble; cutting, polishing. 204 × 70 × 50 сm. PDMP 346/1-sk

Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli

Dancing Hall of Grand Palace, 1751–52

Mirrors appeared in Russian architecture in the mid-eighteenth century. Their wide usage as interior decoration was prompted not only by the special characteristics of the Baroque style, but also by the new ways of life. Before the Petrine epoch, mirrors were forbidden in Russia as the Russian Orthodox Church saw in them the demonstration of ‘foreign sinfulness,’ and it was next to impossible to see a mirror on the wall of a Russian dwelling. Peter’s ambassadors and Russian travelers returned home excited by the galleries of mirrors in Germany, Holland and France. When in Versailles, Peter visited its Hall of Mirrors four times hoping that very soon mirrors would decorate his Petersburg palaces.

However, several decades passed before the genius of the brilliant Rastrelli appeared and firmly established itself in Russia. For Rastrelli, mirrors would become one of his major decorative elements. During the reconstruction of the Upper Chambers in Peterhof he suggested new forms of décor, and Empress Elizabeth enthusiastically accepted them. The gala

Jean-Baptiste Michel Vallin de la Mothe

East Chinese Room of Grand Palace, 1766–67

The history of cultural contacts between Russia and China started in the Petrine epoch. During the Grand Embassy, Peter was greatly impressed by various oriental collections and palace interiors in the chinoiserie style.

Years passed, and Catherine the Great also became interested in Chinese culture. She was attracted by Chinese ethics, the Chinese way of thinking and, to a lesser extent, by Chinese artworks, familiar to her from childhood. In the oldest section of the Grand Palace, she decided to create two small Chinese rooms attached from the eastern and western sides to the central room of the section – the Portrait Hall. Beautifully coloured paintings, the shining of gold, silver and lacquer, a lot of porcelain, enamels and precious kinds of wood made the rooms look like a large treasure box, designed with French elegance by Vallin de la Mothe. Each room was decorated with five compositions – traditional landscapes with islands, humpback bridges, boats and comic characters. One could see mythical creatures, flowers and animals symbolising seasons and good wishes. However, the screens did not cover the whole wall, and the Russian artist Fyodor Vlasov with his assistants made stylised Oriental paintings on the remaining parts of the walls, as well as on the doors, window reveals and plafonds.

The stoves in the Chinese Rooms were decorated with multicoloured tiles depicting Oriental scenes; the rooms displayed collections of porcelain, Canton enamels, lacquer boxes and furniture of the eighteenth century made in China and France. The Chinese Rooms in Peterhof tell us about the contact between Russia and China and also about the interest of Russian rulers in Oriental culture.

Peter chose seascapes for his collection because, besides their general impression, he appreciated their accuracy in depicting vessels of various types; the arrangement of masts, sails, and other technical details. Only a marine painter who had once been a draughtsman himself could convincingly show them in a painting. Following the Tsar’s wishes, Silo completed several works especially for the Tsar, and it is this collection that started the picture gallery in Monplaisir.

The paintings featured sea storms and quiet harbours, fishing ships and navy maneuvering. The artist’s technical knowledge was impeccable. In the painting displayed at Monplaisir, the ships are depicted in minutest detail with exceptional accuracy: we see the forest of masts, sails and gear, vessels both big and small. For Peter, each canvas was a valuable source for learning the history of the sailing fleet. Legend has it that with the help of these paintings he even examined the geselles (postgraduates) who returned to Russia from Europe. This was the Tsar’s way of checking their competence in shipbuilding.

Peter invited Adam Silo to come to Russia and offered him a good salary, but the painter preferred to stay in Amsterdam. He lived a long and happy life there and worked till his dying day.

Vigilius Eriksen

Equestrian Portrait of Catherine II, Russia. 1762

Oil on canvas. 390 × 360 сm.

PDMP 880-zh

The Danish painter Vigilius Eriksen came to Saint Petersburg in 1757 and painted portraits at the court of Elizabeth Petrovna. Among them were many portraits of Grand Duchess Catherine, who soon became the Empress. During the fifteen years that the painter spent on the Neva banks, he completed thirty such portraits. The most widely known is Portrait of Catherine II in Guards’ Uniform on Horse Diamond, painted in 1762. It occupies a special place in the Grand Palace as well as in the history of Peterhof.

The Empress is mounted on her favourite horse with both grace and self-confidence. The brown-spotted Diamond is depicted with the utmost faithfulness and vividness. Curving its noble neck, the horse looks at the viewer with a clever expression in its shining eyes. Catherine is wearing the uniform of the Semyonovsky Lifeguard Regiment and the sash of the order of St. Andrew the Apostle the First-Called: she is proudly heading for Peterhof to win her throne and glory. The portrait was painted for the Audience Hall of the Grand Palace and was greatly admired by the Empress and the new courtiers who had supported Catherine on her road to power. Equestrian portraits in European art always suggest the high-status of the sitter. And Catherine earned hers, displaying rare courage and quick wit.

In January 1762, the new Russian Emperor Peter III ascended the throne. That summer his wife Catherine lived in Peterhof in solitude, receiving no-one and appearing in court only at the request of her husband. The reason for that was the coup which her inner circle were preparing. But it was not the unhappy marriage that caused it: Catherine knew that the attitude of Russian officers towards her husband had long been negative, there were rumours about Peter III’s desire to start war for

century ordered the transfer of Potemkin’s clothes to the Costume Department of Imperial Theaters. They remained there for about one hundred years, and in the 1960s part of the collection was moved to Peterhof.

Potemkin’s clothes were varied and grand. His suit was tailored to the latest fashion and richly decorated with silver thread, cannetille, beads and sequins. Floral patterns made men’s clothes similar to women’s, and contemporaries of the Northern Semiramis tried hard to outdo each other in luxury – diamonds were used to embellish buttons, buckles, hat brims. This was the Russian view of sumptuousness: allegedly, the cost of Potemkin’s outfit amounted to 200,000 roubles, a year’s chief rent from forty thousand peasants.

Potemkin’s attractive appearance never went unnoticed by women. This often made Catherine jealous and started violent quarrels between them. But on the whole their relationship was extremely tender; Potemkin cared about Catherine and always remembered the daring Grand Duchess on the day of the coup in Saint Petersburg when he offered her his sword knot because her own was missing. Several years passed before they fell in love with each other. First it was passion, then love and friendship, and later, understanding and cooperation.

In 1777, King of Sweden Gustav III under the name of the Count of Gotland came to Saint Petersburg, and Catherine held a royal reception for him in Peterhof. Intending to impress her cousin, she ordered: ‘Dress

us in Peterhof in such a way that everyone’s eyes would fall out, and rumors of our exhausserie would be the same as of the arrival of the Swedish King.’ By exhausserie (from the French exhausser, ‘to heighten’) the Empress meant ‘high arrival.’ In her eyes the significance of a royal visit merited a richness of clothing, and Potemkin’s dress suit attests to this understanding of luxury.

Glass Beaded Room of Chinese Palace in Oranienbaum Design by Antonio Rinaldi, drawing by Serafino Barozzi, embroidery under the guidance of Marie de Chelles

There is no doubt that the Glass Beaded Room of the Chinese Palace is a marvelous chef-d’oeuvre of Russian interior. Catherine II, by whose will it was conceived and created, was famous for her building projects, and the architects who worked for her knew how high the Empress’s standards were. By building new palaces Catherine wanted to confirm her legal right to the Russian throne. In Oranienbaum, she started a palace and garden complex – the third in the town’s history – the ensemble of Private Dacha with the Sliding Hill Pavilion and the Dutch House. In the nineteenth century, when no other ‘Chinese’ constructions were left in the park, the name of the house was changed to the one by which it is known today – the Chinese Palace.

During the construction, Catherine perceived Oranienbaum not as the place of her previous married life, but as the site of a new existence where her husband’s Holstein tastes had been totally eliminated. At this time, the light and theatrical Rococo style came into fashion in Europe. In Russia, it was represented by Antonio Rinaldi, whose talent, though rooted in the past, revealed itself in a peculiar manner.

Catherine had been long interested in Chinese philosophy, ethics and culture. However, she treated chinoiserie with a considerable degree of convention: for her, the Chinese themes were meant to appeal to people’s feelings, not minds. The Glass Beaded Room stands out from the general design of the Palace. It was created not without European influence: it was a French handywoman, the former actress Marie de Chelles, who accomplished its ornamentation. Although Marie came to Petersburg with a theatre company, she turned out to be a skilled needle-woman. Since France was the birthplace of this embroidery technique, for a long time it was believed that the panels were made there. In actual fact,

outstanding sculptors of his time, the chief master Stepan Pimenov, adjunct professor at the Academy of Arts, was appointed the head of the Sculpture Workshop. The Emperor himself followed the production of the service, commissioned for him by the administration of the Winter Palace. On numerous pieces, in addition to the views of architectural ensembles, there appeared scenes from the everyday life of Russian society.

This multi-piece service was produced gradually: each Easter and Christmas the commissioner received the finished pieces. Such a long work period was justified: polychrome hand painting on porcelain was laborious, and the creation of masterfully painted miniature images, which repeated the graphic originals with exceptional accuracy, was time consuming. Wine chillers for the Guryev Service were made before 1815. Each year their themes grew more diverse, and along with vases and decorative plates, they adorned the dinner table at royal parties. In 1848, Nicholas I ordered that this splendid service be transferred to his favourite residence where it has been kept to this day. The Guryev service was used for setting the formal table for those guests who stayed in the Coat-of-arms Wing of the Grand Palace. Unfortunately, porcelain tableware is too fragile, and new pieces were constantly made to substitute for broken ones. Over time the service expanded to include 4,500 pieces. Several kilograms of gold were used for gilding.

In Russian history, Count Guryev is known not only as a man under whose supervision the famous Peterhof service was made, but also as the creator of an original recipe. The so called Guryev Kasha (Guryev Porridge) is prepared from semolina, milk and cream with the addition of fruit preserves, honey, nuts, dried and candied fruit, and various spices.

Elena Kalnitskaya. Director’s Choice – Saint Petersburg. Arca Publishers, 2021. 96 pages, 50 colour illustrations

The book was published with the support of Friends of The Peterhof Museum Fund

PJSC Sberbank

General Banking License No. 1481 issued by the Bank of Russia on Aug 11, 2015

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission in writing from the rights holders.

In collaboration with Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX www.scalapublishers.com

© Yelena Kalnitskaya, text, 2021

© The Peterhof State Museum-Reserve, 2021

© Arca Publishers, English edition, 2021

© Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd, 2021

Directors Choice® is a registered Trademark of Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd

ISBN 978-5-91208-439-3

Text: Yelena Kalnitskaya

Design: Vladimir Yakovlev

Photographs: Vyacheslav Korolyov, Mikhail Lagotsky, Dmitry Yakovlev

Translation: Nina Zhutovsky

Translation editor: Laura Fox

Project coordinators: Olga Borodyanskaya, Alexander Belousov, Pauline Yermakova

With participation of Yelena Bortnikova, Nino Vakhania, Svetlana Dobrosolets, Anna Lyashko

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FRONTISPIECE:

Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli

Dancing Hall of Grand Palace, 1751–52

FRONT COVER:

Carlo Bartolomeo Rastrelli

Triton Tearing Apart the Jaws of a Sea-Monster, 1826

BACK COVER:

Mikhail Kozlovsky

Samson Tearing Apart the Jaws of the Lion, 1801

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Peterhof State Museum Reserve 2 Rasvodnaya street, Peterhof, Saint Petersburg, Russia 198516

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