The 'horseman' is actually Catherine the Great. The portrait, painted in 1762 by Vigilius Eriksen, recounts an episode during the coup against her husband, Tsar Peter III, during which he was deposed and she took power. Her horse is a striking flea-bitten gray; probably not a coincidence that his coat resembles ermine.
The Peterhof was Peter the Great’s country palace, inspired by Versailles and constructed between 1714 and 1755. Work was taken over in 1747 by Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, author of many of the grandest Baroque buildings of imperial Russia. The Nazis sacked and fired it during WWII, leaving a burnt-out shell; curators were able to save some of the contents before the invaders arrived, but the building itself is almost entirely a reconstruction.
قصر بيترهوف,,,افخم قصر على وجه الأرض من القرن السابع عشر إقرأ المزيد
