Speaker Series: Emmanuel Ducamp

164 King Street,Charleston SC 29401

04 February, 2022

Description

Please join us in welcoming Emmanuel Ducamp, lauded art historian, attorney, and author, for a discussion on Russian garden design. Please join us in welcoming Emmanuel Ducamp, art historian, attorney, and author, for a fascinating discussion on garden design from Western Europe to Imperial Russia. It is no surprise, as the newly built Russian capital city of St Petersburg was to be "a window on to Europe" that it would also benefit from West European garden design. Perhaps the best known example is that of Peterhof, on the Finland Gulf, where Peter the Great had cascades and water features copied from those he had seen and been impressed with during his visit of Versailles and Marly in May 1717. These precise albums of plans and views were presented to Peter Ist by the Duc d’Antin, Surintendant des Bâtiments du roi, on the occasion of his visit, or simply by drawing French talents to come and work in distant Russia with enticing salaries. Throughout the eighteenth century, the process will repeat itself, would it be in the Imperial gardens of Peterhof, Tsarskoie Selo and Pavlovsk, or in private ones, such as that of Gachina, designed for Count Grigori Orlov, favourite of Catherine the Great, by two English gardeners called in from Britain. Ducamp's presentation will thus stress how Western sources were copied in Russia, often to find themselves adapted and reinterpreted according to local customs, climate necessities, or distinctive taste, forming altogether a new tradition which has been preserved to this day. This event is in person and ticketed - tickets are $10 for CLS members and $15 for guests.