Marble palace
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The Marble Palace ( Russian Мраморный дворец ) is a palace in Saint Petersburg , built between 1768 and 1785 , which is now used as a museum.
The building was built by Antonio Rinaldi on behalf of Catherine II for her lover Grigori Orlow , but he died before completion. The early classical facades are elaborately made of granite and various types of marble. Late baroque style elements can be seen in the decoration of the clock tower above the main portal. The stairwell and large hall still belong to the original interior design, other rooms were redecorated in neo-Gothic styles by Karl Brjullow in 1844–1851 .
During the Soviet era, the palace housed the Lenin Museum, then part of the Russian Museum . Today a permanent exhibition of modern art is presented here. In 1995, the German chocolate manufacturer Peter Ludwig and his wife donated parts of their collections on Russian and Western post-war art to the Russian Museum.
A bronze equestrian statue of Tsar Alexander III has stood in the inner courtyard since 1994 . († 1894). Originally it formed the focal point of the central Znamenskaya Square on the Nevky Prospect in front of the Moscow train station . After the revolutionary unrest of 1905 , which shook the power of the Romanovs, Tsar Nicholas II wanted to put up a demonstrative symbol of rule. Prince Pavel Troubetzkoy designed the monument erected in 1909, but “ the population found the statue ridiculous because Alexander III. sat on a very coarse, almost stubborn-looking horse that seemed to illustrate the clumsiness of autocracy. “Verses of mockery called it the hippopotamus on the dresser .
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Individual evidence
- ↑ David Sittler: Znamenskaja-Platz - place of the uprising , in: Karl Schlögel et al. (Hrsg.): Sankt Petersburg, Schauplätze einer Stadtgeschichte. New York / Frankfurt 2007, p. 277.
Coordinates: 59 ° 56 ′ 42.6 ″ N , 30 ° 19 ′ 36.5 ″ E