St. Petersburg and the Hermitage:

Wonder and Opulence

Dr. Julia Zarankin

April, 2016

Peter the Great (1672-1725)

Painting by Paul Delaroche, 1838

Peter’s CityOriginally named Sant-

Piterburkh

(later became Sankt-

Peterburg)

Renamed Petrograd

(1915)

Renamed Leningrad

(1924)

Renamed Sankt

Peterburg (1991)

Referred to as Piter

St. Petersburg: WINDOW ONTO EUROPE

Moscow: A City of Onion Domes

City of Spires

Alexandre Benois “Peter Meditating on the Building of St. Petersburg” (1916)

Alexander Nevsky Monastery

(1710)

Architect: Domenico Trezzini

Peter’s Summer Palace

Twelve CollegiaDomenico Trezzini

Peterhof Architect: Jean-Baptiste Le Blond

First Winter PalaceDomenico Trezzini (1711)

A New Metropolis

Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli

• 1716-1788

• Transformed St Petersburg

• Responsible for creating St. Petersburg’s character

• Chief builder under Empress Anna and Elizabeth

Tsarskoe SeloRastrelli

Rastrelli’s WINTER PALACE

Empress

Catherine II

Reign: 1762-96

Sophie Frederike

Auguste von Anhalt-

Zerbst

Catherine as Minerva

Goddess of warriors, poetry, medicine, wisdom, crafts, inventor of music

Winter Palace & Hermitage

Winter Palace (1754-62)

(Bartolomeo Rastrelli)

Small Hermitage (1767-69)

(Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe)

Old Hermitage (1771-87)

(Yuri Velten)

Hermitage Theatre (1883-87)

(Giacomo Quarenghi)

Catherine’s Hermitage Theatre

Architect: Giacomo Quarenghi

Hermitage Theatre interior

Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico

in Vicenza

Winter Canal

Designed by Quarenghi

Houses the Raphael Loggias

Raphael Loggias in Hermitage

Adorned by C. Unterberger, 1780

Monument to Peter the Great(Etienne Marie Falconet)

100 of Russian Portraiture

Simon Ushakov, 1660 Dmitry Levitsky, 1770s

Alexander I1801-1825

Gallery of the Patriotic WarHermitage

Palace Square

Nicholas I

• 1825-1855

• Younger brother of Alexander I

• Autocracy, Orthodoxy, Patriotism

Out with Voltaire!

Winter Palace Fire December 17, 1837 (B. Green)

New Hermitage(architect: Leo von Klenze)

Kolyvan Vasein the Hermitage

St. George’s HallThrone Room

Malachite Room

Nicholas I Transforms Hermitage into “Public” Museum, February 5, 1852

Vladimir Lenin:Art Belongs to the People!

Stalin takes over in 1924

Andrew Mellon and the Hermitage

• Buys 21 treasures from Hermitage in 1930 for 6.6 million

• Rembrandt, Van Eyck, Van Dyke, Titian, Velasquez…

• Donates paintings to National Gallery in DC

Van Eyck and Raphael sold

Raphael and WatteauCatherine’s Treasures

State Hermitage during Siege of Leningrad (1941-1944)

Hermitage Today