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Home>Research>Library>Image Collections>Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum

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# Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum

The exquisite Chinese Palace at Oranienbaum, Russia, is one of the few imperial monuments in suburban Saint Petersburg that survived the 872-day siege of Leningrad (September 1941 to January 1944) with relatively little damage.

Oranienbaum was established in the early 18th century by Peter the Great’s close associate Alexander Menshikov and reached its apogee during the reign of Catherine the Great, who commissioned Antonio Rinaldi in 1762 to design her personal dacha in the Oranienbaum park. A skillfully conceived naturalistic setting for the palace includes a pond and pergola within an oak grove. The one-story residence, although small by imperial Russian standards, is a masterpiece that belongs as much to the rococo style as to the neoclassical. It was subsequently named the Chinese Palace for its wealth of interior chinoiserie.

The artists and decorators—primarily Italian and French, as well as Russian—who participated in the interior design were masters of mid-18th-century decorative arts in Saint Petersburg. The decorative program includes ceiling paintings by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and other Venetian artists, wall and ceiling paintings in tempera by Stefano Torelli, and elaborate parquet designs by Rinaldi himself. Of particular note are the marble bas-reliefs by Marie-Anne Collot, who was Étienne-Maurice Falconet’s assistant in the sculpting of another of Catherine’s commissions: the *Bronze Horseman* equestrian statue of Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg’s Senate Square.

This remarkable jewel of a palace, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage site, has survived against all odds and allows contemporary visitors to experience the grandeur of 18th-century Russian architecture. The following views of the Oranienbaum palace ensemble are from a collection of nearly 149,000 digital images, negatives, and photographs of Russia donated to the department of image collections by the scholar and photographer William Craft Brumfield.

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, view across pond. Color slide, 1998, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace. Mid-18th-century marble copy of *Apollo Belvedere*. Color slide, 1998, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, main (south) facade. Mid-18th-century marble copy of *Diana of Versailles (Artemis with a Doe)*. Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, main (south) facade, central pediment. Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, park (north) facade. Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Hall of the Muses (Picturesque Gallery). Ceiling painting: *Triumph of Venus* by Stefano Torelli. Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Hall of the Muses (Picturesque Gallery). Ceiling painting: *Triumph of Venus* by Stefano Torelli. Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Front Hall. East wall: 19th-century painting *Landscape with Ruins*. Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Front Hall. Ceiling painting: *Apollo and the Arts* by Stefano Torelli. Color slide, 1998, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Front Hall. 18th-century parquet floor (dark and light walnut, birch, applewood, pearwood, maple). Color slide, 1998, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Rose Drawing Room. Portraits of Jean Armand de L’Estocq (left) and Friedrich Wilhelm von Bergholz (right) by Georg Christoph Grooth. Color slide, 1998, copyright William Craft Brumfield

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Rose Drawing Room. Ceiling painting: *Diana and Aurora* by Gaspare Diziani. Color slide, 1998, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Blue Drawing Room. Painting: *Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Madonna with Partridges)*, copy after Anthony van Dyck and Paul de Vos by Alexander Beideman. Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Blue Drawing Room. Ceiling painting: *Time Abducting Truth* by Francesco Zugno. Color slide, 1998, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Glass Bead Room. Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Great Hall. Paintings: *Abduction of Ganymede* (left) and *Juno* (right) by Stefano Torelli. Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Great Hall. Painting: *Juno* by Stefano Torelli. Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Lilac Drawing Room. Paintings: *Selene and Endymion* (left) and *Venus* (above the door) by Stefano Torelli. Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Small Chinese Study. Color slide, 1998, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Small Chinese Study. Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Small Chinese Study. Painting: *Fortification* by Gaspare Diziani. Color slide, 1998, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Large Chinese Study. Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Large Chinese Study. Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Chinese Palace, Large Chinese Study. Ceiling painting: *Union of Europe and Asia* by Stefano Barozzi. Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Upper Park. Pond with view toward pergola. Color slide, 1998, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Upper Park. Mid-18th-century marble copy of *Diana of Versailles (Artemis with a Doe)*. Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Upper Park. Canal. Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Upper Park. Stone bridge over canal. Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum
Upper Park. Pond with marble statue of *Jonah* (mid-18th-century copy after Lorenzetto). Color slide, 1997, copyright William Craft Brumfield 

Click on a slide above to view a larger image and detailed description (29 images total)

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Research in the CollectionPolicies and Procedures (PDF 123KB)Copyright Information

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Travels Across Russia: Oranienbaum

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