PHOTO: detail of the Alexander Palace and the Private Garden, from a lithograph (1845) by Johann Jacob Meyer. From the Collection of the Tsarskoye Selo State Museum

The restoration of the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo continues. Aside from the planned opening of the western wing of the palace next year, new projects include the restoration of the 18th century style Private Garden.

Experts who are now working on the recreation of the Private Garden fence, are reaching out to the public for help. The museum is appealing for photographs, preserved in home archives or im private collections of the fence and gates of the palace’s Private Garden, taken during the 1900s-1930s. The museum is especially interested in photos which show the lattice work of the fence.

The former Private Garden was situated on the corner of the eastern wing of the Alexander Palace. The Private Garden began with the creation of a small flower garden, which was fenced with a cast-iron fence with gates and wickets created according to a drawing by Giacomo Quarenghi (1744-1817), the famous Italian architect, who designed the Alexander Palace. In 1845-1846, the fence was replaced with a new one by Sebastian Cerfolio, whose original drawing of this lattice, among other documents on the manufacture of the fence, have been preserved in the archives of the Tsarskoye Selo State Museum.

In addition, several cast-iron elements of the lattice in the form of pine-cones have also been preserved in the archives. They are identical to those depicted in the drawing by Cerfolio. Photographs taken before the Great Patriotic War (1941-45) provide the most complete picture of what the fence looked like, and will allow experts to determine whether the fence underwent any changes since the middle of the 19th century.

If you have any photographs of the iron grille fence and gate of the Private Garden, taken during the 1900s-1930s, please send them by e-mail to the Tsarskoye Selo State Museum at the following email address: referent@tzar.ru

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PHOTO: late 19th century postcard of the Alexander Palace
and the Empress’s balcony

During the reign of Emperor Nicholas II, the eastern wing of the Alexander Palace housed the Private Apartments of the Imperial Family. In 1895, the Emperor had the famous L-shaped iron grille balcony installed here for his wife Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, which was accessed via the Maple Drawing Room.

When completed, it wrapped around the corner of the palace, the same corner which is depicted in the colour lithograph above. Sadly, the balcony did not survive to the present day, it was was dismantled between 1947-49, by order of the palace’s new Soviet “caretakers”.

Despite the extensive restoration work on recreating the private apartments of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna, as they looked in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, the museum have no plans to recreate the Empress’s balcony, the reason being is that they want to preserve the palace’s original 18th century Neoclassical look – which many hail as “Quarenghi’s masterpiece”.

© Paul Gilbert. 9 September 2024