The Tyumen museum has in its collection the painting ‘View of the Winter Palace’ by Swedish artist Benjamin Patersen. This painting is unique as it depicts the Exchange House built by architect Giacomo Quarenghi on the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island. This building, which the famous Italian placed opposite the Winter Palace, was not destined to survive until our time. It was dissembled at the start of the 19th century. The city construction committee decided that the building with such light and gracile proportions did not ‘take landscape significance into account’ and could not ‘manage’ the vast area around the Neva and Vasilyevsky Island. Later, another architect Thomas de Thomon built the new heavy, powerful and solemn Exchange House on the site. It became ‘the static center of Petersburg’. The exquisite Quarenghi’s building was commemorated only in this Patersen’s painting.
Benjamin Patersen worked in Russia for 30 years. He was first mentioned in Petersburg as a portrait and history painter in 1787. Charmed by the look of the new Russian capital, he made a lot of paintings of it. His heritage includes about a hundred views of Petersburg, including oil paintings, watercolors and graphic paintings. His landscapes depict almost all architectural monuments of the Russian capital built from 1787 to 1815. He made individual paintings, as well as series of watercolors and sketch graphics colored by watercolor. ‘View of the Winter Palace’ is a ‘portrait’ of Petersburg made in the typical artist’s manner. The viewer observes the Neva with its boats and ships as if standing on the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island. A large area on the canvas is devoted to the sky, which creates the impression of space and scale of the city. Such layout allowed underlining the magnificence of the “Northern Palmyra” streching on the banks of the Neva River, which at that time was the main transport artery of the city. Patersen often saw poetry in Petersburg, he admired the city, which reflected in the fine color of his graphics and paintings. “View of the Winter Palace” is made in the silverish-blue color range. The forefront tone is denser. The painting was received from the RSFSR Ministry of Culture in 1957, prior to that it was kept in a private collection.
Benjamin Patersen worked in Russia for 30 years. He was first mentioned in Petersburg as a portrait and history painter in 1787. Charmed by the look of the new Russian capital, he made a lot of paintings of it. His heritage includes about a hundred views of Petersburg, including oil paintings, watercolors and graphic paintings. His landscapes depict almost all architectural monuments of the Russian capital built from 1787 to 1815. He made individual paintings, as well as series of watercolors and sketch graphics colored by watercolor. ‘View of the Winter Palace’ is a ‘portrait’ of Petersburg made in the typical artist’s manner. The viewer observes the Neva with its boats and ships as if standing on the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island. A large area on the canvas is devoted to the sky, which creates the impression of space and scale of the city. Such layout allowed underlining the magnificence of the “Northern Palmyra” streching on the banks of the Neva River, which at that time was the main transport artery of the city. Patersen often saw poetry in Petersburg, he admired the city, which reflected in the fine color of his graphics and paintings. “View of the Winter Palace” is made in the silverish-blue color range. The forefront tone is denser. The painting was received from the RSFSR Ministry of Culture in 1957, prior to that it was kept in a private collection.
