More than forty vehicles dating from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries are to be found in the Hermitage collection: they include carriages and barouches, sledges and sedan chairs, droshkys and phaetons, ceremonial pieces and more everyday (but imperial) modes of travel. They tell us about the age in which they were created and used, about life at court, the history of transportation and the history of the decorative arts. Some carriages were commissioned for the Russian court from leading makers in St. Petersburg, but others were the work of Western European masters. They were painted with scenes and ornamental compositions, often based on prints by leading artists of the day.
The origins of the collection lie in the Museum of Court Carriages (the Stables Museum), created during the 1820s, in the reign of Alexander I. This was housed on the territory of the Stables Workshops, not far from the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. By the start of the twentieth century the Stables Museum had one of the world’s largest collections of carriages and ceremonial harness.
Of all the different kinds of vehicle in the Hermitage collection, particular interest is attached to Peter I’s park carriage, decorated with carved wood by the celebrated Nicolas Pineau, which was made in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Another fascinating piece is the ceremonial sledge of Empress Elizabeth, made in the Stables workshops in 1760.
We should particularly note a group of porte-chaises – small carriages intended for a single person – produced in Western Europe and in the workshops of the Stables between the late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. The earliest porte-chaise in the collection is French and dates from the mid-seventeenth century; its upholstery is embroidered in silk.
The coronation carriage made in Paris in the 1720s was intended specifically for ceremonial occasions, above all, of course, the coronation of Russian emperors.
Three vis-à-vis carriages were made in France in the 1760s and are decorated with painted compositions and mother-in-pearl inlay.
Several carriages were produced at the court manufactory in St. Petersburg during the second half of the eighteenth century by the leading carriage builder Johann Conrad Buchendal. Carriages, phaetons and sledges by Buchendal reflect the very latest achievements in the decorative arts, not just in the sphere of carriage construction. A coupé acquired from Buchendal for Catherine II in 1793 was reproduced in miniature in 1897 by craftsmen working for the firm of Carl Fabergé; this little gem was then placed inside an Easter egg commissioned by Nicholas II for his wife, Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna. A sledge for ten passengers, also made by Buchendal in 1793, was intended for trips around the park by the imperial family during the cold Russian winters. Eight horses were required to pull it and as well as the coachman required postilions riding on the first two pairs.
One charming piece is a mechanical droshky made in Nizhny Tagil between 1785 and 1801 by the craftsman E.G. Kuznetsov. Its mechanism includes a little organ that plays six melodies as the wheels turn and a verstometer (to measure distance) of ingenious construction (a similar principle underlies the speedometers used in modern forms of transportation).
Igor Arsentyev
