The Peterhof Museum-Reserve opens a new museum in the Oranienbaum palace complex. The 18th-century building is known as the Picture House. It has been under renovation for the last few years. And over more than two centuries, the house has changed its purpose more than once. There were warehouses, a hospital, and a school here, but the premises were never used as a museum. Now five halls are open to visitors, including an office-library and a cabinet of curiosities. And on July 1, they promise to open the doors of the opera hall, where concerts were held during the time of the first owner of the house, Peter III.
The Oranienbaum Picture House is the first House of Culture of Tsarist Russia, and in every possible sense. Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich, who married the Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, the future Empress Catherine II, in 1745, contrary to the historical stereotype, was a bright, enthusiastic person with varied interests. In the 50s of the 18th century, the Rastrela workshop received an order to build a house in the grand ducal residence that could house the art collection of Peter Fedorovich. By that time, the halls of the Menshikov Palace could no longer accommodate large-scale paintings by Western European masters.
Irina Fedotova, curator of the exhibition of the Great Menshikov Palace: “He is laying the foundation for a picture house. This name of “painting” appears first in the construction documents, and this approximately coincides in time with the foundation of the picture gallery by Frederick the Great, whom Peter III looked up to and admired.”
Over time, in addition to paintings, the house on the western flank of the residence housed an opera house, a cabinet of curiosities, a library and the office of Pyotr Fedorovich. One of the rarities is an authentic jewelry cabinet that belonged to the Grand Duke, which has just returned from restoration.
“This kind of thing was used to store rare stones and precious items,” says Gleb Sedov, acting head of the Big Menshikov Palace, “the abundance of internal drawers gave a special charm.”
In the Picture House, Pyotr Fedorovich kept a library of four thousand volumes, and although Catherine claimed that her ex-husband was interested exclusively in the stories of highwaymen, the composition of the collection tells a different story.
“It included completely diverse books. On art, theater, music, fiction, literature on China,” adds Irina Fedotova.
Using the tapestry diagrams compiled in the 18th century by Peter III's teacher Jacob Shtelin, museum workers managed to identify and return five paintings to their places. Among them are two works from the school of Luca Giordano with Old Testament subjects and two paintings provided for temporary storage by the State Hermitage.
The Picture House Museum is made of paintings. Over the two centuries of its existence, there have never been any museum exclusives here. The paintings of old masters, who returned to their historical places, filled these walls with a historical atmosphere and helped clarify the location of doors and windows.
Among the 80 paintings of the Picture House are early copies of masterpieces by Titian, Poussin, Rubens, and original works by the master of the Venetian school, Antonio Vasilachi. The management of the reserve promises to make the house open to visitors all year round.
The Oranienbaum Picture House was built, presumably in 1754-1761, by order of Prince Peter Fedorovich, the future Emperor Peter III. The building housed an art gallery and library, a cabinet of curiosities and an opera hall. The collection collected in the Picture Hall has become a striking example of a private collection of works of art. In fact, this was the first House of Culture in Tsarist Russia.
Over its 250-year history, the building was used for warehouses and a hospital, a school and residential apartments. Currently, the Picture House houses a museum presenting works of art by Western European masters of the 16th - 18th centuries.
Opening hours of the Picture House - summer 2019
- From 10:30 to 18:00
- Days off - Monday and last Tuesday of the month
- The ticket office closes an hour earlier
Ticket prices to the Picture House - summer 2019
- For Russian citizens
- adults - 250 rub.
- children under 16 years old - free
- schoolchildren (from 16 years old), students and pensioners - 150 rubles.
- For citizens of the CIS
- adults - 250 rub.
- children under 16 years old - free
- For foreign citizens
- adults - 500 rub.
- children under 16 years old - free
Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich, who married the Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, the future Empress Catherine II, in 1745, adored not only military affairs, but also music and painting. In the Great Menshikov Palace of Oranienbaum, the collected collection of paintings no longer fit, and the prince ordered the construction of a new building for it - the Picture House.
The building housed an Art Gallery and a Cabinet of Curiosities, a library and the office of Pyotr Fedorovich. In addition, according to all the rules of theatrical art, the first court opera house was built here, which existed from 1755 to 1758.
Although Catherine II believed that her husband read nothing except books about military affairs and robbers, the collection collected by Peter III speaks of the diversity of his tastes. There were books on fiction, as well as on art and theater, music and about China. The reign of Peter III was very short (the emperor ruled for only six months - from December 25, 1761 to June 28, 1762). By the end of the 18th century, the gallery was disbanded because subsequent rulers did not show due respect to the building.
In the summer of 2015, the Picture House in Oranienbaum opened after six years of reconstruction. The appearance of the historical building was recreated, and many decorative art objects and paintings were returned to their places. Now there are about 80 paintings by masters of painting from the 16th - 18th centuries.
On the first summer day, a new museum, the Picture House, opened in Oranienbaum, part of the Peterhof State Museum-Reserve complex. It was built in the middle of the 18th century for Peter III. /website/
The picture house is located in the royal summer residence; restoration was carried out there for many years, and finally it opened its doors to visitors. Now this is the 31st museum of Peterhof.
General Director of the Peterhof Museum Elena Kalnitskaya called the opening of the museum “a joyful day not only for St. Petersburg, but for all of Russia.”
“We wanted to break stereotypes, give a new understanding of the personality of Peter III, who was a well-educated and artistically gifted person, had his own museum, library, and collection of musical instruments,” emphasized Elena Kalnitskaya.
Evidence of this characteristic is the artistic and scientific objects on display in the new museum and... its musical theme.
Today the museum has five halls for visitors. Already at the entrance to the Two-Light Hall and the next Picture Hall, you can get acquainted with the special, picturesque decoration characteristic of the 18th century.
More than 80 paintings by Western European artists of the 17th–18th centuries are presented in a trellis hanging, that is, they form a single canvas on biblical subjects. Five paintings are genuine items from the collection of Pyotr Fedorovich. His painting museum contained more than 400 paintings.
Next, the visitor finds himself in an office-library and a cabinet of curiosities. An antique globe, books and tools from that time indicate the young emperor’s varied interests and in-depth studies in the natural sciences. Pyotr Fedorovich, following the fashion of the era, collected art objects from the East, especially China and Japan. Porcelain, Chinese “curiosities” - objects of decorative art are presented in display cabinets, recreated according to samples of that period.
The Opera Hall is of particular interest to visitors. This cozy chamber court theater, where the first Russian opera was staged in 1755, occupies half of the Picture House. Here they listened to music, staged opera performances and ballet divertissements.
From July 1, the excursion will end with a multimedia enchanting spectacle: a recreation of fragments of the opera “Cephalus and Procris” to the music of the Italian Francesco Araya and set design by Sumarokov. Special effects of “theater machinery” - moving figures, thunder, lightning, rain, wind and arias, accompanied by ancient instruments, will recreate the atmosphere of the 18th century theater.
It is worth noting that Pyotr Fedorovich was not a spectator in his theater, but a director and first violin of the orchestra. According to contemporaries, his skill as a violinist aroused the admiration of the public. His personal collection consisted of about 60 violins, including Stradivarius and Amati rarities.
In the future, chamber concerts for the public will be held in the Opera Hall.
Opening the exhibition, Elena Kalnitskaya told how it was possible to collect exhibits that are authentic or identical to the period of Peter III’s stay in Oranienbaum. Traditionally, accurate inventories were compiled in royal palaces, which are used by modern restorers and exhibition organizers.
“In my opinion, today inter-museum cooperation is at a very high level. The exchange of exhibits is right, because what we store does not belong to us, but is part of the general culture,” explained the director of Peterhof. The Hermitage, the Russian Museum, the Kunstkamera, the Conservatory and the State Archives of St. Petersburg helped in the creation of the new Peterhof museum.
After the museum is filled with exhibits, the personality of the overthrown failed monarch can be judged more objectively.
We continue, which is preparing to celebrate its 300th anniversary.
In the Lower Garden, next to the Great Menshikov Palace, large-scale restoration work is currently underway, and we will not yet be able to get inside the Picture House, the facades of which should be completed before the end of the year. But its interiors, which keep many secrets, are still in the plans of museum workers.
According to Natalya Bakhareva, head of the Oranienbaum branch of the Peterhof State Historical Museum, the Picture House can be compared to a multifunctional cultural center, albeit of the eighteenth century and owned by one single person - Emperor Peter III, the deposed husband of Catherine the Great. Not much is known about him, and the information is extremely contradictory.
The Picture House had an opera house, two picture halls, a library and... a cabinet of curiosities.
Played the Stradivarius violin
So, what was this “first multifunctional cultural complex”? There was an opera house, two art halls, a library and... a cabinet of curiosities.
Peter III was fond of music and theater, played the violin himself, collected these instruments - he even had a violin in his collection, created by Stradivarius himself. Therefore, in the theater of the Picture House, everything was put on a completely professional basis - Italian operas were performed there, the troupe was Italian, but on the orders of the emperor, courtiers, Holsteins who served in the amusing fortress of Peterstadt, and their children were taught music and singing. There was also a school of singers.
“We don’t have original drawings of what the theater was like, but we have a beautiful idea that we want to realize,” says Natalya Bakhareva. “The idea of a small opera house, so that the musical works that were performed under Peter III would be shown there.” Museum workers have already been very successful in this direction - they are working to identify the libretto, looking for the notes of those works that were staged on the stage of the Picture House Theater. “We know the repertoire, works have been found at the Conservatory, now we are agreeing on copying, and we will, of course, then need the help of specialists to recreate the performances,” notes Bakhareva. It is also known that the scenery for the performances was created by the Italian Giuseppe Valeriani; his works for the Hermitage Theater have been preserved. Of course, it is premature to talk about a permanent troupe in Oranienbaum - for now these will be guest artists. But there will definitely be opera!
The Palace of Peter III is all that remains of the amusing fortress of Peterstadt.
Restore trellis hanging
Natalya Bakhareva claims that it will take a whole day to get acquainted with all the treasures of the Picture House. And now serious work is underway to prepare the exhibition. After all, after the death of Peter III - the deposed emperor and disliked husband - Catherine the Second ordered the collections he had collected to be taken away from Oranienbaum. The paintings were transferred to the Hermitage and the Academy of Arts, the books to the Public Library and Book Collection of the Hermitage, and the collection of the Kunstkamera to the Academy of Sciences. “Now we can’t collect those collections, we can’t return them, we can only ask for some items for temporary exhibitions,” says Bakhareva, “but we can select items by analogy. Today we are studying the principle of selecting paintings for trellis hanging. We have preserved three paintings that belong to the historical collection of the Picture House. But, knowing the paintings of which schools were represented in the collection and the principle of hanging, we can, if not recreate everything exactly, then recreate it in principle.”
The selection of paintings for Peter III was carried out by Jacob Shtelin. His diagrams have been preserved in the archives of the Academy of Sciences, and the masters and subjects of the paintings are known. They selected it this way - here’s a big picture, here’s a small one, according to the plot, according to the schools, according to the color, and not according to the masters - and hung it so that there were no gaps between the frames. The Picture Hall in the Picture House is one of the first examples of trellis hanging in Russia; it appeared earlier than in Peterhof.
Drawings, engravings, bone balls
As for the Kunstkamera of Peter III, we know what things were there and where they are now. But museum workers want visitors from the 21st century to understand what was so interesting to people of the 18th century - drawings, engravings, bone balls from Japan and China...
By the way, it is very important to know what the bindings of the books looked like, because, of course, dummies will take their place in the library - no one will allow ancient books with a three-hundred-year or even more history to be displayed in an open space - this is unbearable for their “health”. They need a special climate.
The picture house is in some way a counterbalance to the amusing fortress of Peterstadt - the notorious passion of Peter III for Holsteins and imitation of Frederick the Great in military drill. Unhappy Peter in the Picture House reveals another aspect of his personality - an interest in music, theater, and books.
“In 2011 we will celebrate the 300th anniversary of Oranienbaum, but 2012 is also a significant year for us: 250 years since the palace coup of 1762, when the guard swore allegiance to Catherine, and the deposed Peter III, who fled Oranienbaum, quickly ended his days in Ropshe,” reminds Natalya Bakhareva.
Galina Artemenko, photo State Museum "Peterhof"
This is not only a museum; work is underway to recreate a small opera hall. Our correspondent Natalya Sulyukina tells what awaits viewers inside the Picture House:
It’s difficult to call the “Picture House” in Oranienbaum a new museum, because it was built in the mid-18th century by order of the future Emperor Peter III. At that time, the building housed an art gallery, a library, and even a cabinet of curiosities. And now, in the 21st century, the “Picture House” has been restored to its original appearance.
The restorers really had a lot of work to do. For more than two centuries, the “Picture House” has repeatedly changed its purpose. There were warehouses, a hospital, a school and even residential apartments here. So the interior details of the first owner had to be collected bit by bit.
“A marvelous cabinet, similar to an architectural structure, this is an order from Pyotr Fedorovich, it was always in Oranienbaum, the year of its execution was 1747.”
A jewelry cabinet, a collection of “overseas rarities,” items from his office - all of this was in the young emperor’s personal use; now these rarities form the main exhibition of the four halls of the museum. But the most difficult thing was to restore the fifth, painting room.
Elizaveta Mikhailova, tour guide:“An interesting fact is that over the years, the purpose of the picture hall, like the entire Picture House, changed several times, so the layout inside was disrupted, but we have drawings by Jacob von Stellen, and we know that the Three parks" was located on this small patch on the western wall."
Thanks to the fact that the location of one painting was precisely known, five original paintings from the collection of Peter the Third returned to their historical places. In total, 80 works by Western European masters are presented in the Picture and Double-Light halls of the museum.
And this is a presentation of the Opera Hall. Its restoration is not yet completed. Previously, performances in the “Picture House” were performed by the court theater troupe, now it will be replaced by modern technologies, in July a fragment of the opera “Cephalus and Procris” will be recreated here, then it will be possible to say with confidence that the “Picture House” has been completely updated. But its revival is only the beginning of big changes.
Elena Kalnitskaya, director of the Peterhof State Museum:“The restoration of Oranienbaum is progressing, maybe not as quickly as we would like, but positively. And behind the “Picture House” there will be the Menshikov Palace, then, we hope, the Palace of Peter III, the Stone Hall. We don’t stop, we don’t put an end to it.”
And these are no longer hopes, but very real plans for the near future. Art critics are confident that very soon the Oranienbaum palace and park ensemble will become no less popular than Peterhof.
