Decoys, tapestries and mirrors that used to see Catherine II. The Kuskovo palace from the inside

You can spend hours walking around the Kuskovo Memorial Estate, admiring the garden statues and the buildings strewn around it: the austere-looking Dutch House, stylish Italian and eclectic Swiss pavilions, the mysterious Grotto and grand Hermitage. The park alleys unerringly lead visitors to the estate centerpiece: the Kuskovo Palace. In the 18th century, under its founder Count Pyotr Sheremetev, every summer in Kuskovo was filled with music, clinking glassware and lively chatter: glitzy balls and receptions went on without breaks.

It’s like all that just ended yesterday. The Kuskovo Palace still preserves its original spatial layout along with its interior elements: flooring, ovens and fireplaces, ornamental partings, wood carvings and plaster mouldings, mirrors and lighting fixtures.

From 1775 till now

The Kuskovo Palace (or the Grand House, as it was also called) was built in 1769-1775. The name of the architect who designed the palace for Count Pyotr Sheremetev, remains unknown. The construction, however, was overseen by Karl Blank, an architect from Moscow, who used the drawing made by Frenchman Charles de Wailly. The wooden residence survived to our day untouched. It has never been rebuilt: its plank flooring, fireplaces, plaster mouldings and extensive art collection still remember their first owner and his guests.

The palace was not Sheremetev’s permanent residence: Count and his family only lived there in summer, but the landlord was extremely concerned with the state of the building. If you look into the old documents, you can learn that each season at Kuskovo used to start with mild renovations. Selective restoration is still needed today from time to time: mostly, just removing dust from furniture or interior elements.

A comprehensive restoration of the palace interiors took place in 1976-1983. All the decorations were rebuilt following late-18th-century inventories; ovens, flooring and painted plafonds were renovated.

Main antechamber

On entering the palace, we find ourselves in the main antechamber. Looking around it, you would never think that marble pillars and walls are actually decoys. The walls are wooden, with marble textures painted expertly on them. The painted panels that look like bas-relief sculptures are grisaille. Ornaments on jasper vases are another decoy: they look like bronze, but are actually papier-mâché and putty made up in paper embossing technique. It’s not that Sheremetev was too poor to use real materials instead of imitation. Back in those times, the expensive materials were not as important as artist’s craft and ability to make something unique out of something simple.

There are two ways leading from the antechamber: reception rooms are to the left, the card game room is to the right. The latter was where guests could play some cards before dancing or dining surrounded by portraits of the 18th-century royalty and political figures. The pool room is next to it. One of the first pool tables in Russia is still there. It was imported from England in 1770.

Reception rooms

In Count Sheremetev’s times, there were three reception rooms in the palace. One of them used to host lunches and dinners renowned throughout Moscow (there was no separate dining room). Before dinner, the house servants brought tables in and set them up, then removed them after the meal was over.

Staff of the modern Kuskovo recreated the furnishings that could have decorated one of the receptions back in those days. The table is decorated following the custom of the second half of the 18th century, with original tableware and ornaments, along with imitations of the desserts popular at the time. One quite fascinating detail is that guests could find their seats around the table by looking at porcelain figurines. Presently, those are characters from bucolic scenes.

Tapestries made by Flemish and Dutch artisans in the late 17th - early 18th century decorate the second reception room. Sheremetev imported them from abroad. They have not been taken off the walls once: instead of hanging free like tapestries, they’re nailed on. Some old documents detailing the purchase call the tapestries “wallpapers”: “Six items of wallpaper.” Some of the tapestries have been lost: much of the original furnishings and decor perished during the war of 1812.

The third reception room is upholstered in raspberry color fabrics: those were valued especially highly in the 18th century and had also been imported. The source of their color is carmine, a pigment made of cochineals, tiny insects that live on cacti in Latin America. Any of those fabrics used to be worth a fortune.

The carmine fabrics serve as background for portraits of Russian monarchs in gilt carved frames. Among them are portraits of Catherine II, who loved visiting Kuskovo and was a guest there at least six times, her son Grand Duke Paul and his wife Maria Feodorovna. The latter two portraits were painted by famous artist Dmitry Levitsky who used to serve the cream of the Russian nobility.

The true treasure of the Carmine Reception Room is acase made for a barrel organ, a brass musical instrument. It was made in the Moscow workshop of Paul Spole, a French carver and decorator. The barrel organ was one of the most well-known in the 18th century Moscow. Noble guests used to gather around it to enjoy the music. Pieces by Johann Fischer and Joseph Schuster, German Baroque composers, were especially popular.

Study and bedrooms

Pyotr Sheremetev’s private study has the largest decoy paintings collection in Russia. Set up against oak wall panels, they make things painted on them look real. Books on a shelf, a fly or a quill: all of them look so realistic, they used to often make Count Sheremetev’s guests ooh and aah in surprise. The most valuable decoys were painted by Grigory Teplov (Still Life with Parakeet) and Pyotr Bogomolov (Books).

The place for Sheremetev to relax was his private bedroom, done in soft blue colors. Portraits of his children painted by Ivan Argunov adorn the walls: Anna, who died young, Varvara, who went on to become Countess Razumovskaya, Nikolay, and Annushka, a Kalmyk girl fostered by Countess Sheremeteva. Count ordered the last one to immortalize the memory of his wife and the kindness of her heart.

The grand bedroom was not for sleeping. Rooms like that were mandatory for any palace, but their function was entirely ornamental. Some think that Sheremetev used silk upholsteries and gilt elements to imitate Louis XIV’s chambers in Versailles. There are sleek “little beans”: small writing desks especially favored by Catherine II. One could use a desk like that to have some tea, knit or write letters without worrying about dropping anything. Their name is due to their bean-like shape.

Estate owners’ portraits line the walls. Portrait of Count Pyotr Sheremetev painted by German Georg Grooth, the court painter, was damaged greatly during the Napoleonic war: French soldiers had left bullet and bayonet holes in it. The painting had to be thoroughly restored.

A tricky powder room

During breaks between dances, courtly chatter, games and other amusements, guests absolutely had to straighten up their appearance, hair or clothes. Specially for that purpose, the owners set up a small powder room lined in English cotton print (a cotton fabric with flower pattern against a light background). There, porcelain vases stand together with a German planter, a vanity table from Denmark and a Russian-made bureau cabinet.

There used to be a door opening to the garden (not anymore) and another, secret door next to the bureau, leading into the library. The latter, however, had no books, just chinaware, glass and pottery, along with measuring tools: a thermometer, a barometer, etc.

Grand hall and gallery

Any estate owner had to be an enlightened, educated person, a lover of arts. There was always a separate room serving as an art gallery. The paintings there were matched by their size, color and subject, so they looked good together. It wasn’t important how famous the artists were. Sheremetev’s gallery had landscape, portrait and Biblical paintings made by French, Italian, Dutch and Austrian painters. Allegory of Autumn by Charles-Joseph Natoire and Self-Portrait by Christian Seybold are the most high-value among them.

The largest room in the palace is the Grand Hall that used to hold balls, lunches and dinners. Numerous mirrors lining its walls are original (like all the other interior elements). It’s easy to imagine Catherine II or some of her courtiers reflected in them. Tables used to be set up against the mirrors first; then, after the meal, they were taken away and the dancing started.

The Grand Hall has a door opening into the park. In the night, the grounds around the palace turned into another open-sky ballroom. Guests went out there to have some fresh air, take a stroll along the alleys or watch the fireworks.