Museums: Exhibition “Elizaveta Petrovna and Moscow”

The exhibition “Elizaveta Petrovna and Moscow” timed to 300th birthday anniversary of the Empress which opened at the Engineers Corps of the State Tretyakov Gallery has brought together rarities of major Moscow museums, and finished the museum “trilogy” on relations between 18th c. Russian monarchs with Moscow.

Three years of preparatory work and two floors of the Tretyakov Gallery Engineers Corps have been taken without striking a blow by the Empress Elizaveta Petrovna (Elizabeth of Russia).

It was in Moscow that Elizaveta Petrovna was born, spent her childhood and youth, following a legend, in one of Moscow churches she secretly married his favorite Alexei Razumovsky. And by a tradition was crowned at the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.

The exhibition features a coronation album which belonged to Elizaveta Petrovna. On the first page there is a unique print. It shows how Moscow looked like in the beginning of the 1740s. Here you can also see the same enlarged print which enables to examine the image in a detailed way. Here you can see the Big Stone Bridge and a place for the future Moskvoretsky Bridge.

The coronation has been depicted in the smallest detail. The exposition also puts on display private correspondence of Elizaveta Petrovna – not a single letter in the Russian language.

Porcelain – is another passion of the Empress. “So-called own porcelain, tea set of the Empress Elizaveta Petrovna. Porcelain used to be so expensive at that time that it was exclusively ordered either by members of the Tsar family themselves or for Emperor’s court. We may claim that the own service was used by the Empress”, said Deputy Director General of the Tretyakov Gallery Andrei Vorobyov.

The exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery will be opened up to late March 2011 г.