Senate Square, St Petersburg with the Falconet Statue of Peter the Great
Jennens & Bettridge
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1850 - 1875
Materials
Oil on papier-mâché
Measurements
940 x 1397 mm (37 x 55 in)
Order this imageCollection
Wimpole, Cambridgeshire
NT 207769
Summary
Oil painting on papier-mâché, Senate Square, St Petersburg with the Falconet Statue of Peter the Great by Jennens and Betteridge, mid Victorian (see WIM/P/4,5,6) (Senate Square, St Petersburg, with Falconet's statue of Peter the Great). Signed. One of a set of four. The granite boulder on which the statue of Peter the Great stands was discovered in 1768 on the shore of the Gulf of Finland. The model for the equestrian statue of Peter the Great was sculpted by Étienne-Maurice Falconet (17160-1791). Through the influence of Diderot he was employed by Catherine II (‘The Great’) of Russia to sculpt the statue and worked on it from 1766 to 1769. The head of Peter the Great was sculpted by Falconet’s pupil M-A. Collot The casting of the bronze began in 1775 and the opening ceremony took place on 7 August 1782. The inscription on each side of the pedestal in Russian and Latin reads “To Peter the First from Catherine the Second. MDCCLXXXII”. The balance of the unsupported forelegs is secured by the lengthened tail and the serpent intended to symbolize rebellion defeated. The latter was sculpted by F. Gordeyev, who directed the erection of the bronze on its granite plinth. The classical buildings of the Senate and Synod are on the left, and were created in 1829-34 when it was decided to build a structure that would harmonize with the Admiralty building on the right, the architect was Carlo Rossi. The Senate building can be seen in the painting. The Central Historical Archive is now located in the Senate building. The Admiralty building on the right, forms the architectural centre of St Petersburg. The building dates from 1806-23 and was the work of the architect A.D.Zdkharov. Before the Revolution the Admiralty housed the Ministry of Navy and the Naval Museum. It now houses the Dzerhinsky Higher Naval Engineering Academy. The column on the far right background is the 47.5 m tall Alexander Column and commemorates the war against Napoleon. It was completed in August 1834. The 704-ton granite monolith came from the Pyuterlaks quarry in south Finland. The angel on the top, holding a cross was sculpted by B.I.Orlovsky. The party seen riding in front of the statue of Peter the Great, is probably the imperial family, Nicholas I (1796-1855) and his wife Charlotte of Prussia (1798 – 1860) the daughter of Frederick William III of Prussia (1770-1840) whom he had married in 1817. The 4th Earl of Hardwick stayed at Peterhof in 1842 when accompanying the King of Prussia on a visit to the Tzar.
Provenance
Elsie Kipling, Mrs George Bambridge (1896 - 1976), daughter of Rudyard Kipling, and by whom bequeathed to the National Trust together with Wimpole Hall, all its contents and an estate of 3,000 acres
Credit line
Wimpole Hall, The Bambridge Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
Jennens & Bettridge