2024

UNIVERSITY PIER SPHINX

Columns and statues to see
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These two sphinxes of Thebes, 3,500 years old, no longer contemplate the Nile but the Neva. Studied by Champollion and acquired by the Tsar in 1830, they now watch over the Academy of Fine Arts. For the anecdote, they had to decorate the banks of the Seine because Charles X had acquired them a few weeks before being deposed during the revolution of July 1830. So it was Nicolas I who pulled the chestnuts out of the fire and took advantage of the political unrest to buy the two chimeras from France.

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 Saint-Petersburg Санкт-Петербург