Marly Palace, Baroque palace in Petergof, Russia

Marly Palace is a small two-story palace of clearly cubic volume in the western part of the Lower Park at Peterhof, built in 1720–1723 to a design by Johann Braunstein. Its facades are modestly decorated with rusticated pilasters with Doric capitals, balconies with wrought-iron railings, and windows divided into small square panes. The building stands on a low base beside a large pond, with a paved area alongside and rows of trees and hedges around it.

Peter the Great commissioned architect Johann Friedrich Braunstein in 1720 to build this palace and named it after the French château Marly-le-Roi. Construction finished in 1723, making it an important example of how French architecture was brought to the Russian imperial court.

The name recalls Peter the Great's 1717 visit to the French royal residence of Marly-le-Roi, though the Peterhof building copies only its general layout, not its form. From the mid-18th century the palace served a memorial role, and today its rooms display Peter's sea cloak, a kaftan embroidered with the Order of St Andrew, books from his library and a table with a slate top he made himself, alongside his collection of paintings by little-known Dutch, Flemish and Italian masters.

Marly Palace stands in the western part of the Lower Park, with the Marlinsky ponds to its east and the Sectoral ponds to its west. The Venus Garden lies north of the Great Pond toward the sea, the Bacchus Garden south of it. The palace has 12 rooms besides the staircase and two corridors, and no traditional state hall: Peter I gave that role to the vestibule, the Front Hall.

The ponds east and west of the palace were stocked with fish brought from across Russia for the tsar's table, and from 1724 fish were bred there. The tradition was revived in recent times, and anglers can now fish at Marly. The Venus Garden was sheltered from Baltic winds by an earthen rampart raised when the ponds were dug.