Exhibition "Enfilade of State Rooms"

About exhibition

The Fountain House is one of Saint Petersburg's most interesting landmarks, almost as old as the city itself. The name "Fountain House" has been associated since the 18th century with the estate of the Sheremetev counts, built on a large plot between the Fontanka River embankment and Liteyny Prospect. The palace was virtually a museum of the Sheremetev family's history — for many centuries they played an important role in the Russian state. Since 1990 the Sheremetev Palace has been a branch of the Saint Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music. Today the palace's halls display items from the Sheremetev collections, as well as paintings and decorative and applied arts of the 18th–19th centuries that have entered the museum over the last quarter century. The palace's state rooms, recreated in the 21st century as they were in the 1830s, astonish with the variety of their decorative furnishings and immerse visitors in the atmosphere of palace life. Renowned architects from different eras participated in creating the interiors of the palace and estate buildings over several centuries: F. S. Argunov, I. D. Starov, A. N. Voronikhin, D. Quarenghi, H. Meyer, D. Quadri, I. D. Korsini, N. L. Benois, A. K. Serebryakov, and others. Under the Sheremetev counts, the Fountain House was one of St. Petersburg's high-society centers and a meeting place for outstanding musicians and figures of culture and science.