Lot 52
  • 52

Giacomo Quarenghi

Estimate
30,000 - 40,000 USD
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Description

  • Giacomo Quarenghi
  • Plan for the English garden at Peterhof, on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, with an elevation of the Empress' pavilion
  • Titled and inscribed with a key in pen and brown ink 
  • Pen and black ink and watercolor

Provenance

Probably a gift from the artist to Sir Charles Whitworth, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at St. Petersburg, later Earl Whitworth
Whitworth Family
Sir Albert Richardson
E.A.S. Houfe, Esq.
Sale: Christie's, London, November 30, 1983, lot 129
Sale: Sotheby's New York, January 1992, lot 178
Acquired at the above sale by A. Alfred Taubman

Exhibited

Nottingham, University of Nottingham, Architectural Drawings from the Collection of Sir Albert Richardson, 1968, no. 31

Literature

Sandro Angelini et alGiacomo Quarenghi, Bergamo, 1984, p. 182, note 83 (where it is suggested that the drawing came to England with James Meders, the gardener)

Catalogue Note

One of the first commissions given to Quarenghi by Catherine II was for the construction of three small palaces in the English garden of Peterhof. Work seems to have begun in 1780 but the Empress' palace, the so-called English Palace, was not completed until 1794, and the two others, which were never completed, were destroyed on the orders of Emperor Paul I in 1797. The gardens themselves were the work of James Meders, begun soon after his arrival in 1779. Other drawings related to the project are known, none as complete or with the annotations of this one (see Sandro Angelini et al., Giacomo Quarenghi, Bergamo, 1984, pp. 130-134; p. 182, note 83; and cat. nos. 18, 723, 724). 
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