From 14 March 2024, the exhibition “The Gift” will be running in the Cottage palace. It has been organized by the State Hermitage in conjunction with the Peterhof State Museum-Reserve and is being held to coincide with the Year of the Family in Russia.
Saint George the Bringer-of-Victory in a carved Neo-Gothic frame
Germany. 1842
Painting: Oil on paper and wood. Frame: Carved wood, gilded over gesso
State Hermitage Museum
The centrepiece of the exhibition is a painted image of Saint George the Bringer-of-Victory from the Hermitage collection. This work, unique in terms of its treatment and iconography, was created by the German artist Gerhardt Wilhelm von Reutern (known in Russia as Yevgraf Romanovich Reitern) and the Russian poet Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky, a close friend of the imperial family and tutor to the heir to the throne, for the 25th wedding anniversary of Emperor Nicholas I and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.
It was intended that this gift would be presented in a ceremonial manner, accompanied by the recital of Zhukovsky’s ode 1 July 1842, but the poet’s expectations were disappointed: the picture and the poem reached the recipients no more than formally, and until recently they have led separate existences.
Almost two centuries later, the museum curators are implementing Zhukovsky’s unfulfilled original concept. People’s Artist of Russia Nikolai Burov, a public and museum figure, has become the voice of the exhibition, while the image of Saint George is supplemented by the wedded couple from the stocks of the Hermitage and thematic video content.
The choice of venue for the exhibition is no coincidence. Created within the Alexandria Park at Peterhof specially for Nicholas I’s family, the Cottage palace served as a backdrop to the imperial couple’s domestic idyll. Here, far from worldly bustle and court ceremonial, the pair spent many a happy day in the company of their children and close circle, which included the poet Zhukovsky. Numerous letters from the Empress and her children to their mentor are evidence of a touching friendship and closeness that they took care to preserve over many years.
The exhibition’s curators are Anna Petrovna Ivannikova, senior researcher in the State Hermitage’s Department of the History of Russian Culture, and Yekaterina Vasilyevna Andreyeva, Head of the Exhibition Projects Department of the Peterhof State Museum-Reserve’s Service for the Preservations and Study of Monuments of Cultural Heritage.
The exhibition can be visited by holders of entry tickets to the Cottage palace, situated in the Alexandria Park at Peterhof, until 19 May 2024.
The museum is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 10:30 am to 5:00 pm. The ticket offices work until 4:00 pm, which is also the latest entry time.
