German-born Catherine the Great (Catherine II) came to power in 1762, aged thirty-three, and ruled Russia for the next thirty-four years, until her death in 1796. She saw herself as a Philosopher Queen, a new kind of ruler in the Age of Enlightenment. Guided by Europe’s leading intellectuals, she modernised Russia’s economy, industry and government, drawing inspiration both from Antiquity and contemporary cultural and political developments in Western Europe. A fluent speaker of Russian, French and German, Catherine was largely self-educated, independent, idealistic and visionary.
While her reign was not always peaceful, Catherine sought to bring order, stability and prosperity to the vast Russian Empire. Her ideals of abolishing serfdom and ensuring the equality of all citizens under the law were ahead of her time, and strongly resisted by the nobility of the day; however, she achieved numerous other reforms, including the introduction of paper money and modernisation of Russia’s education system. French philosopher Denis Diderot, who visited St Petersburg in 1773, described an audience with Catherine as being ‘more like study than anything else: she is a stranger to no subject; there is no man in the Empire who knows her nation as well as she’.
Personal habits
Catherine rose at seven in the morning, drank strong black coffee and wrote until nine. From nine to twelve she would be de-briefed. She lunched at two and responded to mail or read. She entertained at the Hermitage in the evenings from six, and occasionally in her private rooms, but guests left by ten. Catherine ate sparingly but did not stint with offering her guests a lavish array of dishes.
‘Flying tables’
Catherine had a ‘flying’ mechanical dining table that rose up through the ceiling with guests’ noted selection of dishes. It would then be lowered with the chosen dishes, and raised again for the next course. This novelty was to enable guests to converse without fear of being overheard by servants.
Did you know?
When Voltaire died, his niece rushed to sell Catherine his library for a small fortune. The library contained 7,000 annotated works and was housed in the Winter Palace with a statue of Voltaire seated by Houdon.
Catherine was sent two busts of Voltaire, one wearing a wig and one without. She wrote:
‘I prefer the one without the wig; you know my aversion to wigs, especially busts wearing wigs; they always make me laugh.’
Catherine to Grimm: 1 October 1778Voltaire called Catherine ‘the most brilliant star of the North.’
Diderot was the only philosophe to go to Russia.
The Baron Grimm jokingly referred to himself as an ‘Imperial second-hand goods dealer.’
Grimm to Catherine: 30 August 1782Catherine sometimes baulked at her advisors’ enthusiasm to broker big sales and influence her collecting.
‘Why do you think I should buy everyone’s paintings?’
Catherine to Grimm: 16 May 1775
Between 1762 and 1796, the years of her reign, Catherine the Great oversaw a period of cultural renaissance in Russia. The world of ideas in which she was deeply involved from an early age found tangible expression in the material world the Empress later created around herself. The great complexes of imperial buildings Catherine constructed reflected her informed interest in both Classical and Chinese culture.
Catherine not only assembled a collection of Old Master paintings equal in scale and quality to leading European collections, but also paid considerable attention to the acquisition of contemporary painting. While the richness and technical perfection of her diverse collections of decorative arts aimed to dazzle and please, they also had the more practical purpose of raising standards of artistic production in Russia. The fact that more than 500 exemplary works of art from her personal collection, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, porcelain, silver and precious gems, are seen here for the first time in Australia is cause for celebration.
‘I can assure you that this collection contains an unexpected treasury of precious pictures’
Johann Bernoulli, 1778
The insatiable collector:
‘You’re surprised at my buying paintings: perhaps I’d be better off buying less for the time being, but you can never retrieve a lost opportunity.’ Catherine to Voltaire: 10 February 1772
