Alexander Nikolaevich Benois - THE PALACE CHURCH AT PETERHOF; 1918-54

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Alexander Nikolaevich Benois
1870-1960
THE PALACE CHURCH AT PETERHOF
signed in Latin and dated 1918-1954 l.r. and dedicated to the artist's grandson, Pierre Braslavsky l.l.

watercolour and pencil on paper


36.5 by 58 cm, 14 1/4 by 22 3/4 in.

'It was at Peterhof that the novel of my life began'... At Peterhof there is something so magical, so dear and poetic, that almost everybody who gets to know it falls under its spell.'

Benois felt a strong connection with the palace of Peterhof. His father Nikolai Benois worked there as an architect for over ten years, and the palace itself harked back to a distant past which Benois and his fellow members of the World of Art group were trying to revive in the arts.

His first sketches of the palace architecture and grounds date from 1900 when Benois was preparing his history of eighteenth century art. He spent another summer there in 1907 and, fearing that Russia's cultural landmarks might be destroyed in a wave of post-Revolutionary vandalism, returned again in 1918 to record Peterhof in an extensive series of sketches and lithographs. Finally in 1942, Benois put together an album of views of Peterhof dedicated to his wife which drew together a number of his earlier studies as well as some new works based on his original sketches.




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