Lot 36: Giacomo Quarenghi (1744-1817)

The Palace at Kolomenskoe, near Moscow
inscribed 'vue de la Maison de Colomnitza, ou Pierre I est né, à present abatue' (lower left)
black chalk, grey ink, watercolour, on a contemporary mount
8 7/8 x 12 1/4 in. (22.6 x 31.5 cm.)

Kolomenskoe is a former royal estate situated several miles to the south-east of Moscow. Kolomenskoe village was first mentioned in the testament of the Grand Prince Ivan Kalita in 1339 and by the 15th Century the property had become a royal Summer residence.
The estate was completely destroyed by the Tatars during the Time of Troubles and rebuilt in 1667 by the Tsar Mikhail Romanov who commissioned a wooden palace.
The palace was constructed without using saws, nails or hooks and boasted 250 rooms and 3,000 mica windows, which studded a maze of corridors, wings and private quarters. Each room was ornately decorated with intricately carved wooden trims and topped with bulbous domes and tent-roofed towers covered with multicoloured wooden tiles and gilt edging.
By the end of Peter the Great's reign, the palace had fallen into disrepair and was destroyed at the orders of Catherine the Great in 1768.

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