Place for Vrubel's fireplace and paintings on the walls: what restorers found in a mansion on Sadovaya-Samotechnaya

The restoration of the 19th-century mansion housing the Embassy of the Lebanese Republic (14/1 Sadovaya-Samotechnaya Street) revealed curious discoveries. In the house, specialists found the original location of the "Mikula Selyaninovich and Volga" fireplace by Mikhail Vrubel. It is now in the Tretyakov Gallery.

The ceramic fireplace was created based on the epic about Prince Volga Svyatoslavich and the bogatyr plowman Mikula Selyaninovich. The artist used large ornately shaped pieces of majolica to make a single picture, with the seams between them serving as the pattern lines.

The fireplace shape resembles the façade of a building, topped with a pediment. The furnace was first exhibited at the 1900 Paris Exposition, winning a gold medal. It existed in six copies, but only the fireplace of the mansion on Sadovaya-Samotechnaya was used as intended — heating the house. The others were fore decoration.

A copy of the original "Mikula Selyaninovich and Volga" fireplace will be created and installed where it used to be historically.

Having removed numerous layers of paint, restorers also found alfrescoes and grisaille paintings and gold leaf patterns in the first-floor rooms and on the main staircase. Alfrescoes were painted on wet plaster. Unlike classical frescoes, they boast a wider variety of colors used, including  oil and tempera. The plaster supposedly depicts flowers, plants, pictorial ornaments. The grisaille technique was characterized by the use of paints in multiple shades of the same color. The author of the works on the mansion walls is unknown. Now specialists are looking for ways to preserve this unique decoration.

"The comprehensive scientific restoration of this mansion is a long-awaited event. It is the first time in the entire monument's history. The work began late last year, and there are still many challenges ahead to handle in order to return the monument its historical look," commented Alexey Yemelyanov, Head of the Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage. 

According to him, the restorers will fix all the structural and decorative elements of the monument and recreate or make copies of lost details.

The restoration project was prepared by FSUE "Central Scientific-Restoration Design Studios" at the request of the Main Administration for Service to the Diplomatic Corps under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.

Splendor of an architectural pearl

Specialists will reinforce the foundation and restore the brickwork of the walls. Basements will be treated with special formulations to protect them against moisture and mold. Wooden structures will be fireproofed, and metal ones will be treated with anti-corrosives.

The mansion's façades will be cleared of numerous old paint layers; damaged and lost bricks will be restored. A special focus is paid to the restoration of plaster mouldings, door frames, and windows. The façade will be repainted. They will also fix up the white stone staircase and the landing in front of the main entrance. Using archival materials, specialists will restore the lion sculptures that originally decorated the entrance to the mansion. They will be returned to their historical place.

The remaining metal fence will be strengthened on the roof at the side of the southern façade, with a similar one recreated at that of the northern façade. The roofing will be replaced and skylights and chimneys repaired.

The mansion's interiors are going to regain their historical appearance. The front and utility stone stairs, parquet, stained glass windows opposite the front stairs, and a light lantern will be renovated. They will restore the room decorations — columns, pilasters, doors, plaster mouldings on the walls and the ceilings, mirrors, chandeliers, parquet patterns.

From the merchant's house to the embassy residence

The brick house was built in the northern part of the Garden Ring in 1881. It had many different owners redesigning it to their taste. The house has two architects. Mecheslav Piotrovich erected it, and Viktor von Kossov rebuilt it in 1897. The mansion took its final shape when it belonged to the merchant of the first guild Nikolai Kashtanov, and went down in history as his possession. Kashtanov's monogram still adorns the attic of the central part in the two-story building.

The mansion's façades are decorated with plaster mouldings, platbands, ornate brackets. The original layout of the building has survived to this day: the entrance, the grand lobby with decorative ceiling paintings, and the grand staircase with a large skylight. The main hall of the first floor has a unique four-pane glazed door and a wooden ceiling with painted panels in caissons (spaces between intersecting beams). On the second floor is a suite of piano nobiles: a study, three living rooms, and a dining room. There is an extant glazed partition with crystal facet glasses between the living room and the dining room. An antique safe in the study reminds of the pre-revolutionary atmosphere. The east part of the mansion has an unchanged utility staircase with molded ornate fence posts.

The house was residential after the Revolution of 1917. In the 1920s, the American millionaire and socialist Armand Hammer, who was friends with Vladimir Lenin and helped the Soviet Union, settled there. He lived here with his wife, the famous singer Olga Vadina.

A Moscow legend has it, the mansion was then an oasis of cultural life with almost daily concerts of celebrities. After the Hammers had departed to America, their property passed to the diplomatic mission. In 1929, the Mexican mission moved in here. Today the mansion is under the economic jurisdiction of the Main Administration for Service to the Diplomatic Corps under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. The building houses the Embassy of the Lebanese Republic.