When asked who first brought the idea of the Hermitage to St. Petersburg, most would probably say Catherine the Great. However, what most do not know is that the original idea of a hermitage in St. Petersburg was thought of by Peter I, better known as Peter the Great. Peter ruled Russia from 1682-1725 and during that time he introduced other European cultures to the rest of Russia. While building his country palace of Peterhof, Peter took many ideas from Versailles, including garden pavilions and fountains of various designs. While building his palace, Peter naturally included a Hermitage that would later hold seventeenth-century Dutch paintings and offered a place where Peter could hold private parties (Norman 3). This particular Hermitage was only two stories high and it included an upstairs dining room where Peter could entertain his guests. Within the dining room there was a magnificent oval table that could seat 12 persons. This table was unlike most oval tables however, for when a bell was rung, the middle section of the table could be lowered down into the kitchen area where the next meal would be put into place. This design allowed the guests to enjoy their meal without ever having to be bothered by the presence of servants (Massie 632).
The Small Hermitage
The Hermitage that exists in St. Petersburg today is a great deal bigger than the one at Peterhof. Today, the Hermitage is located in what was originally the Winter Palace which was started in 1754 by Bartolomeo Rastrelli. It was in that year that Empress Elizabeth had Rastrelli design a baroque style building located on the banks of the Neva River. This Winter Palace was the sixth winter palace to be built by the Russian imperial family and it would become the winter home of all the czars since Peter III (Rastrelli, Bartolomeo Francesco). During her reign, the Empress Elizabeth used many of the rooms, in what was probably the newest of the Winter Palaces, as places where she could hold her private parties. She called those rooms that she used for private entertainment her 'Hermitage' (Norman 5). When Catherine the Great inherited the Winter Palace from Elizabeth, she naturally wanted to add an addition to the palace. Catherine had the French architect Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe build a pavilion that would become known as the Small Hermitage (Knopf 170). When Catherine first came up with the idea of the Hermitage pavilion, her original plan was to have mechanical tables like those found at Peterhof as well as a first-floor 'hanging garden' that was to be built over her stables. However, her idea did not work out as she had originally thought it would. Catherine’s interest in the collection of paintings soon took over and she found herself adding picture galleries down the sides of the gardens. In her first ten years as Empress, Catherine bought 2,000 pictures. She soon realized that her Hermitage pavilion was too small to hold her entire collection. Catherine therefore brought German-trained architect Yury Velten to Russia in order to build yet another addition to the Winter Palace (Norman 7). This extension was added on beyond the pavilion and would later be known as the Large Hermitage (Knopf 170). This new extension not only contained galleries, but it also had a library and a medal cabinet, as well as a billiards room (Norman 7).
The Large Hermitage