Palace of Peterhof, Russia

Jennens & Bettridge . Oil painting on papier-mâché, The Palace of Peterhof, Russia by Jennens and Betteridge, inscribed, mid Victorian. One of a set of four. The Grand Cascade was conceived by Peter the Great and the original lead statue of Samson in the centre by Carlo Bartolomeo Rastrelli was replaced at the beginning of the 19th –century by a gilded bronze Samson rending open the jaws of the lion by Mikhail Kozlovsky. The Peterhof Palace, the idea of Peter the Great, was erected by Carlo Bartolomeo Rastrelli in 1747-55. In the 18th and 19th centuries the Peterhof Palace served as an official summer residence of the Russian Emperors. The party seen walking at the left, is probably the imperial family, Nicholas I (1796-1855) and his wife Charlotte of Prussia (1798 – 1860) the daughter of Frederick William III of Prussia (1770-1840) whom he had married in 1817. The 4th Earl of Hardwick stayed at Peterhof in 1842 when accompanying the King of Prussia on a visit to the Tzar. Wimpole, Cambridgeshire (Accredited Museum)