The exhibition of the Museum of Moscow presents the print “Main View of the Kuskovo Village”. The Sheremetevs — an ancient boyar family — owned the Kuskovo estate from the 16th century until 1917.
The residence was the center of cultural life in the 18th century. It was a typical country estate spanning 230 hectares. At that time, it was called a “summer house for entertainment”. Its owner was the nobleman Pyotr Sheremetev (1713–1788), the son of Boris Sheremetev, the famous Field Marshal of the Petrine era. Pyotr Sheremetev loved hosting official receptions and celebrating holidays and festivities there. Sometimes, during especially solemn holidays, 25,000–30,000 visitors came to the estate at the same time.
Many talented masters were engaged in the construction of the Kuskovo estate and its park in the 1740s–1770s. Among them were Karl Blank and Yuri Kologrivov, as well as the serf architects Fyodor Argunov, Alexey Mironov and Grigory Dikushin. From the 18th century to the present day, almost all the main buildings of the estate have been preserved, including the palace, the church with a bell tower, the kitchen wing, park pavilions — the Dutch and Italian houses, the Grotto, the Big Stone Greenhouse, and the Hermitage. Visitors can admire the French formal garden with ponds, canals and marble decorative sculptures.
The engraving presented in the museum is part of the album “An Authentic Representation of the Buildings and Gardens located in one of the houses for entertainment called the Village of Kuskovo, belonging to His Excellency Count Pyotr Borisovich Sheremetev.” The engraving by Pierre-François Laurent captures a panoramic view of the Kuskovo estate; it was based on a drawing by an unknown Russian artist of the 18th century. The work allows one to get an accurate idea of the Kuskovo estate in the second third of the 18th century. It shows not only the buildings that have been preserved to this day, but also the lost ones: Pagodenburg, the Column Gazebo, the Belvedere, and the Old House, also called the Big House. The Old House was rebuilt several times, but in the early 1770s, it was dismantled, and in 1775 a new palace was erected on that site.
