Cameron Gallery, Neoclassical gallery in Pushkin, Russia.
Cameron Gallery is a neoclassical gallery in Pushkin near Saint Petersburg featuring a colonnade of forty-four ionic columns. The structure extends along an elevated position and overlooks Alexander Park and the Great Pond below.
Charles Cameron built the gallery in 1784–1787 as part of the Cold Baths ensemble, after Catherine II obtained his book on Roman baths and hired him in 1779. The eastern staircase was added in 1788, and bronze copies of the Farnese Hercules and Flora were placed on its pylons in 1787–1788. The gallery was restored in 1946–1947 after wartime damage.
The name Cameron Gallery was coined only in 1885 by art historian P. N. Petrov in the journal Zodchiy; for a century the building had no name. Bronze replicas of the Farnese Hercules and Flora, cast at the Academy of Arts from models by F. G. Gordeev, stand on the stairway pylons.
The gallery stands in Catherine Park, 23 km south of Saint Petersburg. Catherine II had a gentle ramp built up to the Hanging Garden because she disliked stairs; the eastern staircase, added in 1788, leads from the park to the colonnade. The colonnade is glazed and open as a belvedere, so expect wind on the upper level.
The Agate Rooms on the upper floor were finished in the "Pompeian style" with agate, jasper, marble and gilded bronze. Catherine II had received four volumes of the Herculaneum books from the King of Naples in 1763, and engravings by Piranesi served as models. The gallery itself went unnamed until 1885, when the art historian P. N. Petrov called it Cameron's Gallery in the journal Zodchiy.
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