Giacomo Quarenghi

Quarenghi was summoned to Russia in 1779 by the Empress Catherine II.  He became one of her favorite architects and was responsible for a large number of buildings, both public and private.  This seems to be a study of the important Church of the Dormition on the Pokrovka, in Moscow, which was destroyed in 1936.  Another study by Quarenghi of the same church, seen from a different angle with other buildings, is in the Shchusev Museum of Architecture, Moscow.¹  The Church of the Dormition was built in 1695-1699, by the Russian architect Peter Potapov.  It was one of the architectural wonders of Moscow, universally admired, and praised by Francesco Rastrelli and other Russian architects for the splendors of its seven domes and the delicate carving of its mouldings.  During his Russian period Quarenghi often made sketches of buildings and churches from life.  In St Petersburg he used small sketchbooks for his own record and pleasure.  Occasionally he made duplicates of these views  to send to friends in Italy.  Instead, his drawings datable to the end of the 1790s during his stay in Moscow, are more complete, bigger in size, executed in watercolor, often signed, and different from the previous and more intimate group of sketches.  They are also done from life, but their decorative aspect and degree of finish indicate they may have been executed as a commission or as a gift to an important patron.  As the date of the coronation of Paul I, 5 April 1797, appears on one of these views, it has been suggested that the whole group was executed as a present to the new emperor of Russia, in order to gain his favor, or that they were commissioned by the Emperor himself.²

We are very grateful to Ivan Samarine for providing us with an image of the Church of the Dormition.

1. See S. Angelini, Vladimir Piljavskij, Vanni Zanella, Giacomo Quarenghi, Bergamo 1984, p. 41 and p. 43, reproduced fig. 24

2. Idem, pp. 43 to 47