Sheremetiev Palace, Baroque palace on Fontanka River in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Sheremetiev Palace is a Baroque structure with yellow and white exterior walls running along the Fontanka River embankment. The complex comprises multiple buildings connected by courtyards and garden spaces that organize the estate.
Peter the Great granted the land to Field Marshal Boris Sheremetev in 1712 on condition that a court building be erected. A single-storey palace by G. Dmitryev rose in the late 1730s; Savva Chevakinsky and serf architect Fyodor Argunov added the second storey in the early 1750s. Ivan Starov, Giacomo Quarenghi and Andrey Voronikhin remodelled the interiors for Count Nikolai Sheremetev, who moved in in 1796. Nationalised after 1917, it housed the Museum of Noble Household until 1931, then research institutes; since 1990 it belongs to the Museum of Music.
The palace's name comes from the Fontanka River, not the Sheremetev family. The family kept a serf choir and orchestra here, and from the 19th century their singers lived in the Pevchesky Wing. Musical evenings hosted Glinka, Berlioz, Liszt and singers Viardot and Rubini.
The Museum of Music occupies the main building, with its restored suite of ceremonial halls on the second floor; the Anna Akhmatova Museum is in one of the wings. The two collections are separate, so plan to visit each on its own. The palace stands on the Fontanka embankment at house 34, with the former income buildings facing Liteiny Prospekt at 51.
The palace's serf choir, formed from his father's bonded singers, was housed in the Singing Wing built between the Fountain and Hospital wings. This choir became the Sheremetev Capella, and the wing's name recalls the resident performers.
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