Petrodvorets (Peterhof)

The album contains about 250 colour and black-and-white plates with accompanying texts. There is an introductory article, detailed annotations and a bibliography in Russian and several foreign languages. The texts consist of historical data, descriptions and artistic analyses of the complex as a whole and its constituent parts: the Upper Gardens, the Central, Western and Eastern Areas of the Lower Park, the Great Palace, the Monplaisir Palace, the Hermitage Pavilion, the Great, Marly, and Dragon Cascades, the Samson, Neptune, Great, Menager, Roman, Terrace, Sun, Pyramid, and other fountains. The illustrations will take the reader through the old parks, enable him to admire the jets and torrents of the fountains and cascades, the beauty of the gilded and marble statuary, or to walk through the splendid halls and chambers of the palaces, enjoying all that has been achieved by the talents and labours of those architects, sculptors, gardeners and fountain-builders who brought this masterpiece of art into being, and of those who gave it new life.