Exhibition 'Palace, Grotto, Portrait Gallery' at the Kuskovo Estate

About exhibition

Kuskovo Estate is a unique cultural monument of the 18th century, one of the earliest examples of summer country residences in Russia. The Palace—the main building of Count Pyotr Borisovich Sheremetev's country pleasure estate in Kuskovo—was built in 1769–1775 under the direction of the Moscow architect Karl Blank and was intended for the ceremonial reception of guests during the summer. The 'Grotto'—the only pavilion in Russia to have preserved its unique grotto decoration since the 18th century—is the most exotic of Kuskovo's architectural structures. The principal value of the interior decoration is the ornamentation made from 24 species of shells from tropical seas (the Mediterranean and Black Seas, and the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans). The Portrait Gallery is one of the most valuable Russian collections of portrait painting and a genuine rarity of 18th-century Russian culture.