The Silver Age of Russian culture is an era that fell on the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries. In that tough time of the greatest political upheaval, poetry, theatre and painting flourished. On the art horizon appeared most bright stars. Among them was the star of a talented graphic artist, master of painting, theatre figure, art critic and art historian, as well as the ideologist and founder of the legendary Mir iskusstva (World of Art) — Alexandre Benois.

Like the art of the majority of members of Mir iskusstva, Benois’ works are atmospheric, permeated with the finest poetics and a sense of times past. Ego escapism is nothing more than an attempt to escape from reality into “retrospective fantasies”.

Together with his fellows from Mir iskusstva — Bakst and Somov — Alexander Benois visited the residence of the French monarchs — Versailles — for the first time in 1896. It was there, in the brilliant palace complex built by order of Louis XIV the Sun King, that Benois, a descendant of native Frenchmen, managed to find his dream.

Alexander recalls his meeting with Versailles in the autobiographical work My Memoirs. He writes that prior to his personal acquaintance with the palace ensemble, it seemed to him that he knew everything about Versailles and nothing would come as a surprise to him. But when the meeting took place, Benois was shocked. He did not expect such formidable greatness, tragedy and melancholy. It even seemed to him that he suddenly found himself in the time of Louis XIV and was able to observe the last, tragic and painful days of this monarch, dying of a terrible ailment.

Benois barely managed not to cry in the minute when the fiery ray of the setting sun broke through a cover of storm clouds and the palace windows that reflected it turned to gold.