The State Hermitage Museum: Exhibitions

The Park at Stowe

Originally items in the Green Frog Service bore 51 views of the park at Stowe - probably the most famous landscape park in England. Since some of the items have been lost, we have only 40 scenes today. Nevertheless, even now Stowe is represented by the largest number of views and, moreover, with impressive iconographic comprehensiveness. The source for the painting on the dish was an engraving by George Bickham the Younger after Jean-Baptiste Claude Chaterlain's drawing "A View of the House from the Equestrian Statue in the Park". We are looking at the northern facade of the mansion. The equestrian statue of George I in Roman armour from a model by the sculptor John Nost was set up opposite it on the bank of a pond about 1720 and was one of the earliest adornments at Stowe. Russian travellers traditionally compared Stowe with Tsarskoye Selo, finding much in common between the two parks.