Palace of Pavel Alexandrovich. Where the Romanovs lived Stieglitz's mansion on the Promenade des Anglais 68

Double address: Angliyskaya embankment, 68 / Galernaya st., 69-71.

Mansion of Baron A.L. Stieglitz - Palace of Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich.
1852-1862 - architect A. I. Krakau.
1887-1889 - architect M.E. Messmacher - alteration (Travel between the first and second floors. The lower floor is decorated with rustications. There is a small portico in the center of the main facade. A wide frieze is decorated with moldings).

On the site of the mansion of Baron A.L. Stieglitz there were two residential buildings. One of them was built in 1716 and was the first stone house on the Promenade des Anglais. It was built by Ivan Nemtsov, a shipwright. After him, the house was owned by his son-in-law, the famous architect S.I. Chevakinsky. The second house was owned by the merchant Mikhail Serdyukov, the builder of the canal system in Vyshny Volochyok.

For Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich, the youngest son of Alexander II, the palace was purchased in 1887 from N. M. Polovtseva, the baron's adopted daughter. Its rework was entrusted to M.E. Messmacher. The architect completed it for the wedding day of the Grand Duke and the Greek Queen Alexandra in 1889. After his young wife died in 1891, Pavel Alexandrovich moved to Tsarskoe Selo.

In 1917, the palace, little used for many years, was sold to the Russian Society for the Procurement of Shells and Military Supplies. In 1919, the Grand Duke was shot in the courtyard of the Peter and Paul Fortress.

At the palace of Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich there was the Church of St. Alexandra. The consecration of the house church took place in 1889. The temple was located on the second floor of the transverse courtyard wing and was decorated by the famous architect N.V. Sultanov in the Old Russian style. The finishing of the church was carried out in the workshop of K. E. Morozov. There, a two-tiered gilded zinc iconostasis with 35 images was created and the royal gates from Medvedkovo near Moscow were restored. The room was illuminated by an antique copper chandelier. The utensils were brought from Greece. The walls were covered with ornamental paintings and images of saints.

In 1897, the facade of the church was decorated with stucco figures of evangelists and angels by M. P. Popov. The church was moved to the Tsarskoye Selo mansion of the Grand Duke after his move, where it was consecrated under the name Blagoveshchenskaya.

The interiors of the palace are of artistic value. The main white marble staircase stands out among them. The exit is made in the form of an arch with columns. The living room was decorated with caryatids. Draperies, gilded molding and carvings were used in decoration. The library is finished in oak. Krakau placed portraits of composers in medallions in the concert hall. The painter F. A. Bruni completed sketches of the picturesque panels “The Four Seasons”.

The courtyard was decorated in Baroque forms.

In 1938-1939, the right courtyard wing was built on one floor.
In 1946-1947, one floor was erected above the Moorish hall.
Since 1999, the palace has been restored for the needs of the Lukoil company.

Imperial Palaces of St. Petersburg

English Embankment, 68

Initially, on a plot of land along the Promenade des Anglais, on the site of the mansion there were two residential buildings. One of them was built in 1716 and was the first stone house on the Promenade des Anglais. It was built by Ivan Nemtsov, a shipwright. After him, the house was owned by his son-in-law, the famous architect S.I. Chevakinsky. The second house was owned by the merchant Mikhail Serdyukov, the builder of the canal system in Vyshy Volochyok.
In 1830 it already belonged to the Stieglitz barons, who came from the German principality of Waldeck. Nikolai Stieglitz, having moved to Russia at the end of the 18th century, founded the St. Petersburg trading house. In 1802, his brother Ludwig came to visit him; He engaged in export-import trade, soon made a significant fortune and became a court banker. In 1807 he accepted Russian citizenship, and in 1826 he was granted the title of baron. In the history of my hometown of Odessa, Ludwig Stieglitz also played a significant role - for example, he was one of the founders of the Black Sea Shipping Company and the organizer of the Odessa loan.
He then bought a plot of land at 68 Promenade des Anglais. The Stieglitzes quickly grew rich, and the old mansions located on this plot no longer corresponded to their status. Baron Alexander Ludwigovich Stieglitz, son of Ludwig, commissioned an architect who was then fashionable in St. Petersburg. Professor A.I. Krokau build a palace on this site. Alexander Ludvigovich inherited from his father a huge fortune of 18 million rubles and the entire financial empire of the Stieglitzes, which was then already engaged in organizing external loans for Russia. The new palace had to correspond to all this. Stieglitz gave the architect complete creative freedom and an unlimited budget.

Baron Ludwig von Stieglitz, the largest Russian financier

The main facade of the palace along the Promenade des Anglais. 2006

Use of site materials only with the consent of the author.

Palace of Baron A.L. Stieglitz on the Promenade des Anglais.
Watercolor by Albert N. Benoit. End of the 19th century

There is a granite pier right in front of the palace.

The palace stood out from everything that had been built so far on the Promenade des Anglais. Designed in the spirit of the then fashionable Italian palazzo, the facade has not changed and has reached us in its original form, which cannot be said about the interiors, which suffered destruction after nationalization after the 1917 coup. The interiors of the palace combine all the ideas of the mid-19th century about style, beauty and comfort.

Frieze on the facade of Pavel Alexandrovich's palace
(this photo is not mine)

Baron Alexander Ludwigovich Stieglitz, the first owner of the palace.

Alexander Ludwigovich Stieglitz built railways and produced paper, was a banker and a large-scale philanthropist - he built schools, colleges and museums. Later he retired from entrepreneurial activity and headed the State Bank. Soon the baron in a certain way became related to the Imperial family... According to contemporaries, the banker was an unsociable person. He often gave and took millions of sums without saying a word. It was also strange, according to some fellow financiers, that Stieglitz placed most of his capital in Russian funds. To all skeptical remarks regarding the imprudence of such an act, the banker replied: “My father and I received our fortune in Russia: if it turns out to be insolvent, then I am ready to lose all my fortune with it.”
On June 24, 1844, at the Stieglitz dacha in Petrovsky, near St. Petersburg, a richly decorated basket appeared in which lay a baby girl. There was a note in the basket indicating the girl’s date of birth, her name - Nadezhda, and that her father’s name was Mikhail. According to the Stieglitz family legend, the girl was the illegitimate daughter of Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, the younger brother of Nicholas I. The girl was given the last name Juneva, in honor of that beautiful June day when she was found. Baron Stieglitz adopted her and made her his heir, since he had no children of his own and was the last in his family. Baron Alexander Ludvigovich died in 1884, leaving the lucky foundling a simply grandiose fortune of 38 million rubles, real estate, financial structures... and including a palace on the Promenade des Anglais, the price of which, together with the collection of works of art in it, was then 3 million rubles. However, Nadezhda Mikhailovna Iyuneva lived in another house on Bolshaya Morskaya, together with her husband Aleksandr Polovtsev. This house was also given to her by Alexander Stieglitz. They decided not to move into the palace and put it up for sale. However, only a select few could afford such an expensive purchase, and the palace stood empty for three years.
Five years after the completion of construction (1859-1862), Alexander Stieglitz commissioned the famous Italian artist Luigi Premazzi to capture the interiors of the palace in watercolors. Premazzi painted seventeen watercolors, which very accurately reflected the smallest details of the interior; all of them were enclosed in a leather album on the cover of which there was the coat of arms of the Stieglitz barons. Now this masterpiece is in the Hermitage collection. Thanks to this, we can accurately appreciate all the luxury with which the palace was designed inside, in addition, we can see the richest collection of paintings that Stieglitz owned. Next, I would like you to take a breath, because unreal beauty awaits you... These are the interiors of the palace in Premazzi’s watercolors. If possible, I will intersperse them with photographs of how these rooms look now.

Dance hall.

Dance hall. Our days.
www.encspb.ru

Dinner room.

Concert hall.

Living room

Library in the palace of A. L. Stieglitz." Watercolor by L. Premazzi. 1869-72.

Judging by modern photos (not mine, we were not allowed inside) at least the ceiling in the library has been preserved
www.encspb.ru

Office of Baroness Stieglitz.

Dining room.

White living room.

White living room. Our days.
www.encspb.ru

Main office.

Blue living room.

Blue living room. Our days.
www.encspb.ru

Golden Hall.

Dining room

Stable building. Sketch published in 1873.

Only in 1887 the palace was purchased for Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich, and “only” for 1.6 million rubles. The palace was purchased on the occasion of the upcoming wedding of Pavel Alexandrovich and the Princess of Greece, Alexandra Georgievna. The wedding reception took place on June 6, 1889. From then on, the palace officially became known as Novo-Pavlovsky. The young couple did not make any special changes to the interior; the same changes that were made were carried out by the architect Messmacher. A major change was the arrangement of the church in the palace. The consecration of the house church took place on May 17, 1889; it was carried out by the court protopresbyter Yanyshev. The temple was located on the second floor of the transverse courtyard wing and was decorated by the famous architect N.V. Sultanov in the Old Russian style. The idea to build a church in this style was suggested by Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, brother and best friend of the owner of the palace. Name of St. Alexandra was worn by a young newlywed.
The architect entrusted the finishing to the workshop of K. E. Morozov, who installed a two-tier iconostasis made of gilded zinc with 35 images and restored the royal doors from Medvedkov near Moscow. The stylized utensils were made by Ovchinnikov’s workshop. The room was illuminated by an antique copper chandelier; the utensils were brought from Greece. Reproducing the decoration of the Trinity-Spassky Monastery in Moscow, the walls were covered with ornamental paintings and images of saints. In 1897, the façade of the church was decorated with stucco figures of angels and evangelists by M. P. Popov.

Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna
with his daughter, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna

In the palace of Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich on the English Embankment, a major repair is being carried out *

* Builder's Week, No. 38 for 1894

In 1891, after giving birth, Alexandra Georgievna will die. By that time they already had a daughter, Maria Pavlovna, but the birth of their son Dmitry ended tragically for the mother. Only in 1902 did the Grand Duke marry a second time, but how... Contrary to the will of the Emperor, he married the divorced Olga Karnovich, after her first husband von Pistolkors. As punishment for this act, on October 14, 1902, he was dismissed from service with a ban on coming to Russia, and guardianship was established over his property. By that time, Pavel Alexandrovich was the commander of the Guards Corps. In February 1905 he was forgiven, but he was forbidden to appear publicly in Russia with his wife, so he remained to live in France. In 1904, Olga Valerianovna Pistolkors received the title of Countess of Hohenfelsen from the Bavarian King. Nicholas II finally forgave his uncle only with the beginning of the Great War, when Pavel Alexandrovich asked to go to Russia to serve the country. On June 29, 1915, he was appointed chief of the Life Guards of the Grodno Hussar Regiment. In 1916, his requests for transfer to the active army were granted and Pavel was appointed commander of the 1st Guards Corps operating on the Southwestern Front on May 27, 1916. On July 15-16, 1917, his corps attacked heavily fortified positions on the Penrekhody-Yasenovka front in the Kovel direction, broke through the position, drove the Austro-Germans back beyond Stokhod, for which Pavel was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree, on November 23, 1916. At the end of 1916 he was appointed inspector of Guard troops. His wife received the title of Princess Paley. They had two daughters - Irina and Natalya, and a son, Vladimir, a talented poet. He will be shot by the Bolsheviks in Alapaevsk along with the other Romanovs.

Office of the Grand Duke.
www.encspb.rg

Church of the Martyr. Queen Alexandra at the palace of Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich.

Chandelier from the Vel Palace. Book Pavel Alexandrovich in St. Petersburg.

Olga Valerianovna Karnovich, married Princess Paley, Countess of Hohenfelsen
in a Charles Worth dress

Natalie Paley - daughter of Pavel Alexandrovich and Olga Paley
wearing a dress by Lelong, whom she would marry.

In 1917, the palace, little used for many years, was sold to the Russian Society for the Procurement of Shells and Military Supplies.
In the first months of the Bolshevik Revolution, Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich, who was ill, was not touched, and he lived with his family in Tsarskoe Selo. At the end of the summer of 1918, he was arrested and put in a pre-trial detention center in Petrograd. Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich and Grand Dukes Nikolai and Georgy Mikhailovich, exiled in the winter of 1918 to Vologda, where they enjoyed relative freedom, at the end of the summer of 1918 were also arrested and transported to Petrograd and, like Pavel Alexandrovich, put in a pre-trial detention center . In January 1919, they were all shot in the Peter and Paul Fortress and buried in the courtyard there.
After the tragic death of Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich, his widow Princess O.V. Paley and her daughters managed to move to Finland, from where they left for France, where she died.
During the years of Soviet power, the palace underwent major changes - 1938-1939. — the right courtyard wing was built on one floor. 1946-1947 — one floor was erected above the Moorish hall.
And here is the message of our days (October 2008) - the Stieglitz mansion at 68 Embankment des Anglais, which has been empty for more than 10 years, is once again changing hands. This is one of 160 monuments of federal significance included in the list of controversial objects that the Federal Property Management Agency does not agree to transfer to the ownership of the city. Without waiting for the resolution of this dispute, on which the possibility of further privatization of monuments depends, the second investor in a row abandoned the Stieglitz mansion - the Moscow company Sintez-Petroleum, which, following the previous tenant - LUKOIL - did not dare to invest about $50 million in the restoration of the ownerless object . Now Smolny is transferring it to the balance of the Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, which is subordinate to the city, although it is possible that, having received ownership of the mansion, the authorities will return to the original intention of placing the Wedding Palace in it.

materials used from the sites www.vep.ru, www.hrono.ru photos of interiors - www.encspb.ru

It occupies the site where, at the beginning of the 18th century, there were three separate plots. The first of them belonged to Vasily Artemyevich Volynsky, the son of the cabinet minister of Empress Anna Ioannovna. After his father's execution, he sold the house to the treasury. The next owner of the Volynsky stud plot was artillery second lieutenant Pyotr Ivanovich Ivanovsky. From him the territory passed into the possession of Johann Matveevich Bulkel, and then - the wife of the Dutch merchant Login Petrovich Betling.

The neighboring plot, located downstream of the Neva, belonged to the builder of the Vyshnevolotsk canals, merchant Mikhail Serdyukov. From him the house went to the English merchant Timothy Rex.

These two houses were rebuilt before 1822, when a single building of the court banker Baron Ludwig Ivanovich Stieglitz already existed here. In 1848, the baron's entire fortune went to his son Alexander. Despite the unstable financial condition, at the end of the 1850s, Alexander Ludvigovich decided to enlarge and rebuild his St. Petersburg house. To do this, he purchased the neighboring mansion of State Councilor A.I. Bek.

The first owner of the A.I. Bek site at the beginning of the 18th century was the shipwright Ivan Nemtsov. After Nemtsov's death, the territory went to his son-in-law, architect Savva Ivanovich Chevakinsky. Later, the house was owned by the court chamberlain S.S. Zinoviev, Major General Pleshcheev, eminent citizen Bland, A.I. Bek. From the latter the house passed to A.L. Stieglitz.

The new Stieglitz mansion on the Promenade des Anglais was built by the architect A. I. Krakau. The project was ready in 1859, construction of the building was completed three years later. Krakau also built a complex of buildings on the Galernaya Street side. There was A.L.'s office there. Stieglitz (No. 71), ministerial house (No. 71), two apartment buildings (No. 54 and 69).

The wealth of the owner of the mansion was emphasized by the elegant front façade in the historicist style. The magnificent interiors were preserved in watercolors by St. Petersburg artists. Stieglitz built a real palace for his family. All decorative and applied decorations of the house were created according to Krakau’s drawings. The interior details were paintings ordered through the artist V.D. Sverchkov.

The White Hall opened the enfilade of ceremonial rooms along the Neva. Behind it was the Front Room, decorated with two canvases by the Munich landscape painters brothers Albert and Richard Zimmermann. A small passage room led to the Blue Living Room with a white marble fireplace and a lampshade “Cupid Leads Psyche to Olympus” by the German artist Hans von Mare.

The walk-through living room connected to the Dining Room. It contained three paintings, one of which ("Courtyard with a grotto in the Munich Royal Residence" by Hans von Mare) is now in the Hermitage. Two paintings for the Stieglitz mansion were painted in the studio of Carl von Pilotti. The banker’s art collection included works by such German painters as Anselm Feuerbach and Albert Heinrich Brendel. All these paintings were not just part of the collection. They were specially ordered for specific rooms and were full-fledged and integral parts of the interior. In addition to paintings, a collection of tapestries and tapestries was kept in Stieglitz’s house.

The largest hall in the palace of A.L. Stieglitz is the Dance Hall, decorated with French crystal chandeliers. On the second floor there were also the Black and Moorish living rooms. On the ground floor there were the owners' living quarters.

Alexander Ludvigovich settled in his house on the Promenade des Anglais immediately after finishing the premises, in 1862. He lived on rent from an annual income of three million and was involved in charity work. He kept his huge capital only in Russian banks, which was rare for that time (and for today too). Stieglitz financed the construction of railways, founded the School of Technical Drawing in St. Petersburg and its branches in other cities. Stieglitz donated a number of decorative and applied arts from the mansion to the school as exhibits.

Having no children of his own, Alexander Ludvigovich adopted a girl, probably the illegitimate daughter of Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, Nadezhda Mikhailovna Iyuneva. She married a member of the State Council A. A. Polovtsov. The wedding gift from Stieglitz was a million rubles and a mansion on Bolshaya Morskaya Street (house no.). After her father’s death in 1884, Nadezhda inherited a mansion on the Promenade des Anglais, and three years later sold it to Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich.

The Grand Duke first saw Stieglitz's house on November 5, 1886, when he visited it with his brother Sergei. The Grand Duke and A. A. Polovtsov conducted the auction through Vice Admiral Dmitry Sergeevich Arsenyev. The owners wanted to get at least two million for the palace, while Pavel Alexandrovich expected to spend a maximum of one and a half. As a result, they agreed on a price of 1,600,000 rubles in gold.

The purchase of the palace by the Grand Duke took place before his first marriage - to Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna. She died after her second birth. In Europe, Pavel Alexandrovich secretly married Olga Valerianovna Pistolkors. The family did not accept Morganatic Bran; Grand Duke Nicholas II was forbidden to return to Russia for some time. But after the death of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, permission to marry was given. The Grand Duke's wife received the title and surname of Countess Hohenfelsen, and in 1915 the title and surname of Paley. The palace on the Promenade des Anglais was maintained in good condition even during the long stay of its owners abroad.

When selling the house, Polovtsov advised Pavel Alexandrovich to live here without altering the interiors for at least some time, to get used to the house. The advice was not accepted. Architect M.E. Messmacher was immediately invited to work on the new interiors of the mansion. He refinished the living rooms on the east side of the first floor. Until recently, there was an Office with a carved oak ceiling and a fireplace. Somewhat later, the architect N.V. Sultanov built a church on the second floor of the courtyard wing. It didn't survive.

In 1898-1899, the Grand Duke's private rooms in the western part of the first floor were remodeled by the English company Mape and Co. The Office, Library and Billiard Room were redesigned. The firm of F. Meltzer renovated the parquet floors in the Concert Hall and Reception Hall.

After 1917, paintings from the Stieglitz Palace were transferred to the All-Union Association "Antiques". With a few exceptions, their fate is unknown.

In 1918, Pavel Alexandrovich was shot. Princess Paley and her children went to Paris. The palace was nationalized. For a long time it housed various institutions. In 1968, he was taken under state protection.

In 1988, restoration of the building began. It was intended to be used for museum purposes. But the revolutionary events of the 1990s prevented these plans. The palace again passed into private hands and was empty for a long time. The interiors have fallen into disrepair and are in urgent need of restoration. In 2011, the house of A. L. Stieglitz was transferred to St. Petersburg State University.