Kuskovo Estate Museum
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from November to March from 10:00 until 16:00
Closed: Monday, Tuesday and last Wedsday of the month
Moscow Museum Guide
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[edit] Description
Kuskovo, including Kuskovo park, occupies the territory of about 32 hectares. Towards the 1750s, following new trends in lifestyle, Count Petr Sheremetev, an important member of nobility at the Russian Imperial Court, turned his family estate (dating from the 16th century) into a residence, or "château de plaisir", which amazed his contemporaries by its splendour. Up to 25 000 guests would flock here to lavish celebrations.
[edit] Exposition
Yet, Count Sheremetev had the mansion built as a recreational summer residence, as well as a focus for different art forms appreciated by connoisseurs. Exhibits displayed here form a large part of his vast collection of fine and applied art. Nowadays the museum stock counts some 34 000 items, including a huge collection of ceramics and glass from different countries, from antiquity up to the present day.
[edit] Architectural Composition
Architectural composition of the estate unites the Palace itself, three pleasure pavilions in the shapes of a Dutch house, an Italian villa, a Chinese pagoda and some other buildings. Baroque gardens and park landscape are geometrically laid out in the English style near the Large Pond. The earliest surviving structure is the Saviour church, built in 1737-39 in a Petrine baroque style and formerly decorated with marble statues. The neoclassical bell-tower was added much later, in 1792.
[edit] Palace
The Neo-Classical style Palace is one of the best parts of the estate preserved till now. The Kuskovo was constructed near one of the ponds in 1769-65. Commissioned by Count Nikolai Petrovich Sheremetev, the structure was designed by a group of his serfs, including Feodor Argunov, Aleksey Mironov, and Grigory Dikushin. The palace interiors, as completed in 1779, represent a transitional stage between baroque and neoclassicism. This palace houses the most precious collection of Western porcelain in Eastern Europe, which had been collected by several generations of the Sheremetev family. In 1919 the palace was nationalized, and it was declared the State Museum of Ceramics twenty years later.[edit] Photos
