The Picture Gallery

This gallery appeared during the expansion of the palace and its transformation into an imperial residence. In 1797–1799, Vincenzo Brenna added a floor over the south gallery by Cameron and created a “new circular gallery”, which is designed as the Picture Gallery with two-way lighting. A wooden balcony with trellis arches is attached to the gallery from the facade side. Created as a ceremonial reception hall, the gallery also served as the palace pinacotheca, demonstrating the artistic tastes of its owners to their guests. The gathering of collections and the arrangement of home “museums” was very characteristic of the 18th century, especially for representatives of the Imperial House and high-ranking Russian nobility. The light green walls have no decoration, so as not to distract the viewer's gaze from the paintings that fill the pillars. The layout of paintings is purely decorative, subject to strict symmetry and a harmonious combination of paintings with each other. The picturesque effect is enhanced by the decorative plafond painting, where three compositions are placed: The Triumph of Apollo, or Aurora in the center (a free copy of the painting of the ceiling in the Roman Rospigliosi palace by Guido Reni), The Court of Paris on the right and The Three Graces on the left. The paintings were executed by the court artist Johann Jakob Mettenleiter. In 1958, the plafonds were painted anew by the restorer A.V. Treskin based on photographs and analogy.

The Picture Gallery has always housed about 100 works of Western European painting of the 17th–18th centuries. The paramount point for the Pavlovsk collection of paintings became the journey of Pavel Petrovich and Maria Feodorovna to Europe, where they not only bought paintings but also made orders in the workshops of contemporary artists. Thus, in the Art Gallery, you can see the works of the most fashionable artists of the time: two paired paintings by Angelica Kauffmann, Poisoned Eleanor and Saved Eleanor, as well as and her other work The Death of Leonardo da Vinci; two paired paintings by Hubert Robert, Landscape with a River and Landscape with a Waterfall, as well as A Square House in Nimes; The Prodigal Son by Pompeo Battoni, the Allegory of Painting by Anton Raphael Mengs. After the accession of Paul I to the throne, some of the paintings, primarily large-format ones, were transported from the Hermitage in 1796.

An indispensable part of any collection is the works of the Dutch Golden Age painting of the 17th century. The gallery has an excellent still-life Breakfast by Pieter Claesz, an exquisitely painted still life Kitchen Utensils by Pieter van den Bosch, two paintings by Otto Marseus van Schrieck, A Snake Attacking a Lizard and A Snake Attacking a Gopher", two landscapes with cows by Dirck van Bergen, Italian landscapes filled with the southern sun by Jan Dirksz Both and Adriaen van Eemont, and a charming portrait of a boy with a bird by Jacob Adriaensz Backer. Of particular interest among the works by the Flemish masters are The Lamentation of Christ by the workshop of Peter Paul Rubens and Heliodorus Driven from the Temple by Bertholet Flemalle, the follower of Rubens. The Landscape with Skaters by Pieter Bout is distinguished by the beauty of the local flair.

The Italian school of painting of the 17th century is represented by bright works of artists of different directions. Of particular note are two paired paintings by Alessandro Turchi, Bacchus and Ariadne and Pan and the Nymph Syringa, as well as Rest on the Flight into Egypt by Matteo Ponzone, Apollo and Galatea by Paolo de Matteis, The Abdication of the Apostle Peter by the Guercino school.

Along the walls is a set of furniture of carved gilded wood and gilded consoles with tabletops made of colored stones (Russia, the late 18th century). Decorative vases stand before the windows, made of various types of colored stone: Kalkan and Revnev jasper, and Korgon porphyry; two bowl vases of Ural orlets (rhodonite) are mounted on two consoles. All of them were made in the late 18th–early 19th centuries at the Yekaterinburg, Peterhof, and Kolyvan lapidary factories. French bronze of the 18th century takes a significant place in the decoration of the gallery. Of great artistic interest are two pairs of candelabra in the form of antique tripods standing opposite the windows (the workshop of Pierre Gouthière), as well as clocks and candelabra (on a large carved console) made per the models of the famous sculptor Étienne Maurice Falconet. On the sides of the console are two paired vases of the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory known as the Gossip Girls (1808). Two paired chandeliers of gilded bronze with a crystal decor and a rod of blue smalt glass were made in the 1790s in the workshop of Johannes Zech.

The first catalog of paintings was compiled in 1826 by Pavel Mettenleiter, the son of the court painter Johann Jakob Mettenleiter, at the request of Empress Maria Feodorovna. In 1841, at the request of Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, the wife of Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, who inherited Pavlovsk from his mother Maria Feodorovna, a thorough catalog of paintings of the Pavlovsk Palace was compiled by the State Secretary of the Academy of Arts Vasily Grigorovich. In 1872, under Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, the Picture Gallery became an integral part of the Museum opened in the palace.