MARBLE PALACE - ANNEX OF THE RUSSIAN MUSEUM
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The visit to the apartments of the great prince Constantin Constantinovich (the poet K. R.) is subject to a charge and can only be done in a group. Situated in a street parallel to the Palace Quay, a majestic backyard lined with Baroque palaces where the Petersburg aristocracy resided, the Marble Palace was built for Count Orlov from 1768 to 1785 by the architect A. Rinaldi, on a commission from the very generous Catherine II. It bears his name well, if it is declined in the plural, since its facade is covered with 30 kinds of marble. The Soviet regime will make a marble sarcophagus for Lenin, whose palace will house the local museum from 1937. In 1991, the building will also be assigned to the Russian Museum and, on the occasion of the exhibition devoted to official Russian portraits, will return to its past of luxury and pomp. A sculptural foretaste is given with the monument to Alexander III, by P. Troubetskoy, which stands in the square adjoining the palace. The emperor's disproportionate size compared to that of his horse made the sculptor himself (who had only conformed to the tsar's expectations) laugh. In 1937, the Soviets took the statue down into the basement of the palace, and it did not come out again until 1994. Architecturally, the palace is a mixture of the Baroque style favoured by Catherine II and the neoclassicism that Alexander I loved
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