Sightseeing

THE MARBLE PALACE One of the most beautiful palaces in Saint-Petersburg, the Marble Palace was put up at the end of the 18th century to the design of Antonio Rinaldi. The renowned architect was commissioned by Catherine the Great to build a luxurious and at the same time restrained palace as a present for one of her favorites, Count Gregory Orlov. The Empress, who treated her lovers with maternal solicitude, herself chose the site at the end of the Palace Embankment on the north edge of Tsarina’s Meadow (the present-day Field of Mars), two blocks from the world famous Hermitage Museum and across the Neva River from the Peter and Paul Fortress, where all the Russian tsars were buried. It’s remarkable that unlike the majority of Petersburg’s buildings, the Marble palace is faced with natural materials: for the construction of this brilliant sample of the early classic architecture, the celebrated architect Rinaldi, who pioneered the use of natural rocks (7 kinds of marble and granite) in the palace’s decoration, accomplished the facades and the interior of the palace in 32 kinds of marble, all arranged with tremendous taste according to subtle shades of colour, hence the name of the palace. The façade facing the embankment is topped with an attic decorated with two statues and compositions of armor which was performed by the Russian sculptor Shubin; while the façade facing the garden features a unique plastic frieze devoted to the theme “Horse in the Service of Man” (sculptor Klodt). The construction of this majestic building, admirable in its austere solemnity, lasted for 17 years and was completed in 1785, but its first owner Grigory Orlov did not see its magnificence - he died in 1783, and the palace was transferred into Treasury. A property of the royal family, the Marble Palace was gifted to Catherine’s grandson, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich on the occasion of his marriage to Princess Julianna Henrietta of Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld (after the accepted Eastern Christianity, the princess became known as Anna Fyodorovna). In 1832 Nicholas I granted the Marble Palace to his second son Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, who commissioned Alexander Brullov to reconstruct the Palace, and in mid-19th century the palace underwent a radical remodeling - the Palace’s interiors were changed completely, but the outer appearance was preserved. The last owner of the Marble palace was Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, known to lovers of "Silver Age" poetry under the pen name K.R. After the October Revolution of 1917, the palace was awarded to the Academy of the History of Material Culture, and in 1937 a branch of the Central Lenin Museum was opened in the halls of the Marble Palace. Since 1992 a unique architectural monument of the second half of the 18th century, is a branch of the Russian Museum, the largest museum of Russian art in the world. Open daily 10.00 - 17.00, Monday till 16.00. Closed on Tuesday Address: Millionnaya street, 5/11 Phone: 312-91-96 Metro: Gostinyy Dvor, Nevskiy Prospekt

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