Two years of meticulous work, and the Hermitage pavilion opens its doors after restoration in Peterhof. A small building on the shores of the Gulf of Finland was built by order of Peter the Great. The historical aspect and the color of the facades of the house have been completely restored. The main humidity problem has been solved and a lot of time has been spent on restoring the paint in the pavilion.
For the first time in over 200 years, the hermitage of Peterhof is once again surrounded by water. There were earlier attempts to fill the deep moat with stone, but dampness and moisture penetrated the basement and destroyed the building.
The water comes from the Eva fountain, is regulated by shut-off valves up to a certain level, and if it needs to be drained, it is done by pipes in the Gulf of Finland, explained Ivan Lebedev, architect in head of the museum.
Today it is an integral part of the famous Peterhof water supply system. The Hermitage is no longer afraid of humidity. The massive foot – a Putilov limestone stylobate was treated with a special waterproofing solution, and in the lower part of the moat wall they were dressed with granite.
“Peter brought it from Denmark, this idea. Very excited about the idea. Especially the idea of the lifting table. As you know, Peter never copied what he saw, but synthesized it in his head, his soul, redesigned it and implemented it already in his homeland,” said Roman Kovrikov, acting director general of the Peterhof State Museum Reserve.
But Peter the Great did not have time to see his “hermit’s refuge” in its completed form. The work was completed after his death. But for centuries to come, the Hermitage became a favorite vacation spot for the Imperial family.
“They could have fun and eat here without respecting court etiquette. They were also people. They could talk about various topics without fear, and then the servants would hear something and spread it more,” explained Nino Vakhania, head of the Peterhof exhibition department.
Just so that members of the royal family and their guests are not disturbed by the servants, a manual lifting table has been installed in the pantry on the ground floor – the highest point of the Hermitage. On the first – hot soup and appetizers. On the second – pork or poultry, then salads. And already on the fourth, a dessert table was raised from below for guests. Time, sometimes, was spent playing cards or simply enjoying the sea breeze and the view of the Gulf of Finland.
The Hermitage’s initial collection consisted of eighteen canvases. But only Diogenes’ Chalice, a painting by 17th-century Dutch artist Nicholas Rosendaal, has survived to this day. There are already 124 works in the modern collection, by the way, hanging the paintings – close to each other – is the idea of Bartolomeo Rastrelli himself.
European painting of the 18th-19th centuries, separated by golden strips, sparkles with new colors after restoration. On some canvases, many layers of varnish have been removed and damaged fragments have been restored. And a picture was completely returned to the author.
“This painting is “A herd of cows in a pasture”, which finally received the name of the artist. If previously a painting was attributed to an unknown artist, now it has a name. It is the German artist Johann Friedrich Veich,” said Elena Sekareva, head of the lower park castles and museums sector.
The historical color of the facades, close to orange, has also been returned to the Hermitage. For the Hermitage of Peterhof to finally take on the appearance of the era of Peter the Great, it is still necessary to install sculptures on the pediments of the building, and to make the bridge removable, as nearly 300 years ago. .
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