The Russian Museum will show 30 portraits of Catherine II in the framework of the exhibition "Catherine the Great in the Country and the World"

The Russian Museum will show 30 portraits of Catherine II in the framework of the exhibition "Catherine the Great in the Country and the World"
13 February 2018, Tuesday

A large-scale exhibition in the Russian Museum "Catherine the Great in the Country and the World" is devoted to the reflection in the art of deep internal Russian and geopolitical transformations, in which the Empress Catherine II played an important role.


The exhibition is diverse in terms of materials and themes, but the exhibition, holistic in its cultural and historical sense, tells about serious and important events in the history of Russia on the basis of more than 500 works of fine and applied art. The exhibition will feature paintings and graphic works, sculpture, porcelain and glassware, applied art products, costumes and archival documents.


The exposition includes ceremonial portraits of Catherine II and her contemporaries by such artists as Ivan Argunov, Dmitry Levitsky, Fedor Rokotov, Stefano Torelli, Johann Baptist Lumpy the elder, Josef Kreizinger, Salvatore Tonci and others. In addition, the viewer will see sculptural portraits performed by an outstanding master of Russian classicism Fedor Shubin, Italian sculptor Jacopo Minaldi and others. At the exhibition you can see allegorical works, both pictorial and sculptural, representing the empress in the image of Minerva - warriors and patrons of the arts.


The Empress was very meticulous about her portraits. True, the pose was not very fond of - the artists were invited to work with the images already created and approved by her. However, this approach did not guarantee Catherine's grace - for example, she disliked one portrait, she said she looked like a Swedish cook.


One of the most famous portraits of Catherine the Second artist Stefano Torelli, who for the last 18 years of his life worked in Russia. On the canvas the Empress is represented in the image of Minerva. Artists often portrayed Catherine II as the second master of the arts.


The places visited by the empress during her travels across Russia were reflected in the landscapes of Mikhail Ivanov (the Old Crimea views) and Fedor Alekseev (the views of Bakhchisaray and Nikolaev). Brushes of Mikhail Ivanov also owns a number of battle scenes on land and sea, written in watercolor and gouache. Sea battles at Cesme was captured by the order of the Russian Court of Jakob Philip Hackert.


The exhibition unites items from the collections of the Russian Museum, the State Historical Museum, the Pushkin Museum. A. Pushkin, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Hermitage Museum-Reserves Moscow Kremlin, Pavlovsk and Peterhof, the Suvorov Memorial Museum and other museums, as well as archives and private collections.

 

15 February-28 May 2018

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