Catherine's Palace during the war. Catherine Palace (47 photos)

SEPTEMBER Started in Tsarskoye Selo on September 1st. Monday. Yesterday and today, pleasant news continued to arrive about the further consequences of the defeat of the Austrians on the entire front and inside Galicia! Adopted four reports. Made after breakfast nice walk in Babolovo

In 1752-1756.

This elegant hall with an area of ​​more than 800 square meters was intended for official receptions and celebrations, ceremonial dinners, balls and masquerades.

The documents do not say anything about how the idea of ​​building a large hall (also called the Throne Hall and the Great Gallery) was born, but on May 12, 1751, a command was issued to replace the narrow one-story stone galleries-transitions between the central building and the side wings with new ones, “with a broadening as the place will give "". One of the new premises later became the Great Hall.

In creating the Great Hall, Rastrelli proved himself not only as a great decorator, but also as a skilled engineer. The hall with an area of ​​860 square meters, a length of 47 and a width of 17 meters does not have a single support to cover, which also enhances the feeling of spaciousness and light that fills the huge room on sunny days.

The windows of the Great Hall, which occupies the entire width of the palace, overlook both sides of it. In summer, the interior is permeated with sunlight, playing on the gilding throughout the day, in the evening the Light Gallery was illuminated by candles framing the mirrors. Elements of lavish baroque decor create the illusion of boundless space: the alternation of large windows with mirrors visually expands the boundaries of the hall, and the plafond, surrounded by a picturesque colonnade, reveals the space in height. The French diplomat de la Messelier, who attended a reception at the palace, wrote: “The beauty and richness of the apartments involuntarily struck us ... But a new spectacle awaited us: all the curtains were lowered at once and daylight was suddenly replaced by the brilliance of 1200 candles, which were reflected from all sides in numerous mirrors ... ".

The sculptural and ornamental carvings of the Great Hall, covering the planes of the walls in a continuous pattern, were made according to the sketches and models of the sculptor-decorator 130 Russian carvers. Three more experienced and talented craftsmen worked on carving in the Great Hall - Stahlmeier, Karnovsky and Valekhin. The end walls, decorated with multi-figure compositions, received especially magnificent carved decor.

The furniture in the hall consists of gilded wooden chairs covered with white damask; in one of the corners stood a clock in a wooden case, the work of Konrad Erber from Berlin. The hall has 13 windows on each side, all piers are covered with mirrors inserted into a rich stucco and carved gilded ornament; numerous carved, gilded sconces further enhance the beauty of the finish. Gilding done Leprenz.

In the 1790s, structural problems were discovered in the ceiling of the hall. Due to the sagging of the lower belt of the roof trusses, the ceiling was deformed, [...]. The stretchers with the picturesque canvases were removed, the paintings were rolled up on shafts and handed over to the funds of the palace depositories.

Overlapping meanwhile fell into a completely unusable state. In 1820, the architect installed new roof trusses, roofing and new floors in the Great Hall of the Tsarskoye Selo Palace. The installation of new roof trusses, having supports directly above the gilded carvings of the hall, could cause almost inevitable damage to it. To prevent this, V.P. Stasov increased the masonry of the walls framing the hall, raised its ceiling, and introduced a transitional arch between the cornice of the walls and the field of the ceiling. Thus, the ceiling area was narrowed and the return of the original painting to its place was impossible. The ceiling was left white, and the ceiling was decorated with gilded ornaments.” The huge ceiling painted by the artist D. Valeriani was no longer there. The paduga was restored according to the project in the style of the baroque decoration of the grand Rastrelli interior.

At the same time, the decoration of the hall was damaged, so the molding, carving, gilding and parquet had to be completely restored.

At the ends of the Great Hall, instead of dilapidated wooden stairs, the architect arranged two cast-iron ones. The restoration of the Great Hall was completed in April 1823.

In the 1790s, due to deformation of the ceiling ceiling Valeriani removed and transferred to the palace storerooms, and in 1856-1858 the artists F . Wunderlich and E. Franchuoli created a new song "Allegorical depiction of Science, Art and Diligence" glorifying the achievements of contemporary Russia. This plafond died in

IN 1953–1954 years, during the restoration of the Mikhailovsky Castle in St. Petersburg, the side parts of the Valeriani ceiling were discovered - "Allegory of Peace" and "Allegory of Victory" considered lost. Thanks to this find, it was decided to recreate the plafond in its original form, returning two surviving pictorial compositions to the Catherine Palace. During the restoration, the attention of the craftsmen was attracted by their roughly cut edges, which led to the assumption that both of these picturesque compositions were once part of a huge plafond, from which they were cut and placed here, in a new place. And indeed: after the clearing, on both plafonds under the monograms of Paul I, the previously written monogram of Elizabeth was read. Further scientific research confirmed that the "Allegory of Victory" and "Allegory of Peace" were side paintings of a huge pictorial ceiling "Allegory of the bliss of the reign of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna", made according to sketches and decorated up to 1783 one ceiling area of ​​816 sq.m Great Hall in the Catherine Palace. In the Mikhailovsky Castle, it was decided to install copies of the plafonds, which had yet to be completed, and return the original compositions to their historical place - in the Great Hall of the Catherine Palace. The architect A.A. Kedrinsky in 1960 developed project for the reconstruction of the monumental painting of the Great Hall, made on the basis of found genuine fragments, as well as archival materials and the only, fortunately, surviving ceiling of the brush Valeriani "The Adventure of Talemachus" in the Stroganov Palace.

The revival of the central part of the plafond was based on the surviving sketches and description of the composition with a decoding of all the allegories made by Valeriani, as well as a drawing made in 1857, when, according to the sketches of the court architect, a new decoration of the ceilings in several halls of the front suite was created. Restoration artists worked on the reconstruction of the ceiling of the Great Hall under the guidance of. In terms of complexity and scale, this work had no analogues in the world restoration practice.

In all the ideas of the author of the plafond, a man who lived two centuries ago, restorers tried to literally dissolve, learning the peculiarities of the color of his huge compositions and other subtleties of ancient decorative painting. As B.N. Lebedev recalls, the particular difficulty was that it was necessary to achieve a unified tonality of the recreated central part of the ceiling “Triumph of Russia” with the original side compositions “Allegory of Victory” and “Allegory of Peace”. According to the artists-restorers, "the difference impudently climbed into the eyes." Probably, at this time, an understanding came of how the old masters took into account all the subtleties of painting on the ceilings of the palace halls, which surprisingly reacted to everything. natural phenomena and even for the change of seasons: the grass made it green, the white snow evenly revealed the multicolored ceiling, and the colors of autumn brought a special softness to the color scheme. But the coloristic solution of the entire composition was nevertheless found, and the boundaries between the originals and the restored center of the ceiling disappeared. If the ceiling was broken into pieces by its predecessors and each of its fragments was written on a stretcher, then modern masters had to overcome technical difficulties: climb scaffolding, write directly on the plaster, head up and holding a brush in hand. None of them could stand more than 20 minutes of work: their arms, legs, and neck were numb, their backs began to hurt mercilessly, and even the electric light, installed directly on the scaffolding, transferred its yellowish tint to the painting, which caused problems with color in daylight. It is now Boris Nikolayevich Lebedev who smiles, recalling: “We fully understood the conditions in which the craftsmen worked under Mother Elizaveta Petrovna. We had the same hard time."

In January 1988, as a result of a security breach during welding, a fire broke out in the Great Hall of the Catherine Palace. Timely measures to eliminate the fire prevented serious material losses.

Restoration 2009

In the Throne Hall, experienced specialists immediately pay attention to the oak parquet: something is wrong with it. Historical material allows you to restore the picture of what happened. At the end of the 50s of the last century, due to the lack of bog oak, the restorers got out of the situation simply: some of the fragments, which should be dark, were made of walnut, impregnated with a colorful composition. Over time, the coating was worn off, and the appearance of the parquet pattern, to put it mildly, became strange. Getting bog oak is an incredibly difficult task, but Ivan Petrovich Sautov, who then headed the Tsarskoye Selo State Museum-Reserve, was firm: no substitutions. Have to search. “It turned out to be very difficult,” admits Gennady Kravets. “We have few territories where oak is soaked in its natural environment for 15-30 years. True, there are methods of artificial staining, but in our case this is also a substitution. A grandiose event is coming, and the main anniversary events will be held in the Throne Room, which means that everything here must be at the highest level."

Three bright doors lead from the main hall to.

Sources:

• Fomin N. Children's Village. L., 1936.
• Catherine's Palace Museum and Park in the city of Pushkin. L., 1940.
• Pilyavsky V. I. Stasov. Architect. Leningrad: Gosstroyizdat, 1963, 251 p., ill.
• Eparinova E. Stackenschneider. Collection Architects of Tsarskoye Selo. From Rastrelli to Danini / Album, ed. I. Bott. - St. Petersburg: Avrora, 2010. - 303 p.
• S.N.Vilchkovsky "Tsarskoye Selo", 1911
• Historical and cultural magazine "Our Heritage"
• Letters from A.Kuchumov
• Exhibition in the regional library named after Mamin-Sibiryak

Do you have any questions? Or there was a comment or clarification to this article? Write them in the comments under the article - we will answer you within a day!

The Catherine Palace is one of the largest palaces in the vicinity of St. Petersburg.

Catherine Palace- the former imperial palace. Located in the modern city of Pushkin (formerly Tsarskoye Selo), 25 kilometers south of St. Petersburg. The city of Pushkin itself is part of the Pushkinsky district of St. Petersburg.

Gate of the Catherine Palace

Let's get closer.. =)

The building was founded in 1717 by order of the Russian Empress Catherine I. The palace was built in the late baroque style.

In Soviet times, a museum was opened in the palace. During the war, the palace was badly damaged. His recovery took long years and continues by the Leningrad school of restorers on a strictly scientific basis.

The history and architecture of the palace reflect both the architectural trends of each of the eras that the palace survived, and the personal preferences of the Russian rulers of that time.

The palace was founded in 1717 under the leadership of the German architect Johann Friedrich Braunstein as the summer residence of Empress Catherine I.

In 1743, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, who had just ascended the throne, instructed Russian architects Mikhail Zemtsov and Andrei Vasilyevich Kvasov to expand and improve the palace. It was during the reign of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna that the palace acquired its current look and style. In May 1752, she commissioned the architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli (whose most famous building is the Winter Palace on Palace Square) to rebuild the palace because she considered it too old-fashioned and small.

After dismantling, grandiose reconstruction and construction work, which lasted four years, a modern palace appeared, made in the Russian Baroque style. On July 30, 1756, the presentation of the 325-meter palace took place to the shocked Russian nobles and foreign guests.

In 1752-1756, Rastrelli rebuilt the Catherine Palace in the following way. The longitudinal axis of the building became the main spatial coordinate in its plan; the huge length of two parallel suites of front rooms, the scale of which grows towards the center - the Great Hall and the Picture Gallery, is emphasized by the removal of the main staircase to the southwestern end of the building. The rhythmic diversity of the order system of the facade, the large ledges of the colonnades with the entablature hanging above them, the deep recesses of the windows creating a rich play of chiaroscuro, the abundance of stucco and decorative sculpture, the multicolored facades (blue and golden colors) give the building an emotional, rich, festive and very solemn look.

The huge volume of the Grand Palace is immediately noticeable. In addition, the symmetrical axial system of overhead porticos of the palace facade corresponds to the main spatial coordinates of the park plan.

Catherine's Park in Tsarskoye Selo is one of the five parks in the city of Pushkin. The Catherine Park directly surrounds the Great Catherine Palace, making up a palace and park ensemble with it. It consists of a regular Old Garden and landscaped English Park. The park is part of the Tsarskoye Selo State Artistic and Architectural Palace and Park Museum-Reserve.

One of the most memorable buildings in the Catherine Park is undoubtedly cameron gallery. Conceived by Empress Catherine II for walks and philosophical conversations and implemented by C. Cameron, the gallery is located on a hillside, on the border of the regular and landscape parts of the Catherine Park. The height of the Cameron Gallery coincides with the Catherine Palace, but due to the fact that it stands on a gentle slope, the height of its lower floor increases significantly as it moves away from the palace due to the gradual rise of the plinth, made of hewn blocks of syasskaya plate. The walls of the first floor of the gallery are cut through with three-part window openings, the piers between which are lined with roughly processed Pudost stone. The lower floor serves as the base of the colonnade of the second tier, consisting of 44 white fluted columns with Ionic capitals.

Departing from the accepted proportions in the ratio of the height of the columns and the intervals between them, C. Cameron slightly increased the latter, giving the colonnade special lightness and grace. The enlarged window openings of the glazed hall in the central part of the second floor of the building give it perfect transparency. The juxtaposition of the powerful arcades of the lower and light upper floors defines the artistic image of the Cameron Gallery, which embodies the philosophical idea of ​​the eternal contrast of being.

The architect repeated the motif of the four-column porticos several times: at the two main entrances - on the east and west sides, they support the pediments of the colonnade, and on the elongated northern and southern facades they are repeated for decorative purposes.

The frieze and cornice encircling the gallery are treated in the strict classical tradition: the frieze is decorated with graceful wreaths, the cornice is decorated with lion masks.

The grotto, a garden pavilion decorated inside with shells and tuff, was an indispensable part of regular parks in the 18th century.

The project for the construction of the Grotto in the regular part of the Catherine Park on the shore Big Pond also designed by the architect Rastrelli.

The main work on the construction of the pavilion was carried out in 1755-1756, under Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, and was completed under Catherine II in the 1760s. Rastrelli's idea - to decorate the interiors with multi-colored sea shells and porous tuff - was not realized.

During the German occupation, the ensemble was badly damaged, the palaces were looted, many exhibits burned down. Now the ensemble is completely restored.

One of the most famous rooms of the Catherine Palace is the Amber Cabinet or the Amber Room.

The amber cabinet was created by the master Gottfried Tussauds for the Prussian king Frederick I. Amber was mainly used in the decoration. The masterpiece consisted of amber panels, decorations and panels. In 1717, his son, King Friedrich Wilhelm I, presented the cabinet to Peter I as a gift. The Amber Cabinet was packed and transported to St. Petersburg in 1717 with great care.

In 1743, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna instructed the master Alexander Martelli, under the supervision of the chief architect F. B. Rastrelli, to “fix” the cabinet. And by 1770, under the supervision of Rastrelli, the study was transformed into the famous Amber Room of the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo, significantly increasing in size and luxury. And so much so that it is still sometimes called the "eighth wonder of the world."

Sharp changes in temperature, stove heating and drafts destroyed the amber dressing. Restoration was carried out in 1833, 1865, 1893-1897, 1933-1935. Serious restoration was planned for 1941.

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, museum valuables from the Catherine Palace were taken to Novosibirsk. It was decided not to touch the Amber Room because of its fragility, and it was conserved on the spot. The panel was covered first with paper, then with gauze and cotton wool. This was a fatal mistake that predetermined the tragic fate of the masterpiece, since the Nazis, having robbed the Catherine Palace, also stole the Amber Room.

From 1942 to the spring of 1944, it was exhibited for review at the Royal Castle of Königsberg. In August 1944, as a result of a massive British air raid, a fire broke out here, but it is believed that the panels were not damaged, the room was packed and hidden in the dungeons of the castle. Boxes with panels were stored in the castle cellars until the beginning of the assault on the city by Soviet troops.

After the Soviet troops stormed Königsberg in April 1945, the Amber Room disappeared without a trace. Her further fate still remains a mystery.

The search for the Amber Room, organized immediately after the end of the war, did not yield results. At first it was believed that it burned down in the ruins of the Königsberg castle, but since 1946 opinions began to be expressed more and more often that the Amber Room survived the fire. Many hypotheses are put forward where it can be today: from Königsberg to Coburg, from the salt mines of East Germany to secret vaults and American bank safes. It was even assumed that the Amber Room was on the ship “Wilhelm Gustloff” sunk by Marinesko, or on the cruiser “Prinz Eugen” transferred to the USA as a reparation.

Since 1979, Russian specialists from the specially created “Tsarskoye Selo Amber Workshop” have been working on the reconstruction of the disappeared treasure. By the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg in May 2003, it was restored in full from Kaliningrad amber.

The ensemble of the Catherine Palace with its unique Amber Room and the Catherine Park adjacent to it are a kind of calling card city ​​of Pushkin. The Catherine Palace is the compositional center of the Catherine Park and one of its main decorations. The majestic building occupies the central part of Tsarskoe Selo - a palace and park museum-reserve of urban planning art of the 18th - early 20th centuries, which is part of the city.

The history of the palace begins in 1717 with the construction of the "Stone Chambers" for the wife of Peter the Great, Catherine the Great. According to Braunstein's project, it was a modest two-story building, the architecture of which was typical of similar buildings in Russia at the beginning of the 18th century. In 1724 the construction of the palace was completed. In honor of this, a grand celebration was arranged in the new palace.

Years passed. The royal owners of the palace changed, its appearance changed. The first restructuring of the "Stone Chambers" began after her accession to the throne in 1741, Elizabeth the First. Several architects were replaced before, at the end of 1748, the construction was headed by the chief architect of the imperial court, Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli. And by the end of July 1756, instead of a modest building, the empress and her guests were presented with a chic baroque palace, striking in beauty and size. The azure facade was decorated with white columns, moldings and figures of Atlanteans. The gilded ornament gave the palace an even more solemn look. From the central part of the palace there were outbuildings connected by covered galleries. The gilded domes of the five-domed palace church rose above the northern wing. And above the southern wing shone a gilded dome with a multi-pointed star on the spire. Imagine that the facades of the palace are 300 meters long, and it took almost 100 kilograms of pure gold to gild the exterior and interior decorations.

The interior layout and decoration have also been modified. The front rooms were located along the entire length of the building, forming the front golden enfilade. The Picture Hall and the famous Amber Room appeared. The Picture Hall presents more than a hundred paintings by Western European masters of painting of the 17th - early 18th centuries of various national schools. The best craftsmen from different countries worked on the creation of the Amber Room for more than five years.

Since 1770, Catherine the Second took up the arrangement of the Grand Palace. The Empress was fond of ancient architecture, and commissioned the Scottish architect Charles Cameron to carry out the reconstruction and decoration of the palace. Cameron created the Silver and Blue Cabinets, the Lyon and Arabesque Drawing Rooms, the Domed Dining Room and the Chinese Hall in the palace. The Cameron Gallery and the Agate Pavilion, the Zubov Building and the Cold Bath appeared. For the son of the Empress Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich and his wife, the Front Blue and Chinese Blue Drawing Rooms, the Bedchamber, the Green Dining Room and the Waiter's Room were created.

In 1817, during the reign of Emperor Alexander the First, the architect Stasov created the Front Room and several adjoining rooms, decorated in honor of the victory in the war against Napoleon. And in 1862-63, the architect I.A. Monighetti created the main staircase. This was the final stage of the restructuring of the Great Tsarskoye Selo Palace. This name was worn by the Catherine Palace until 1910.