View of Nevsky Prospekt from the Moyka River
Grigory Kachalov
1751-1753
Etching with engraving
After an original by Mikhail Makhayev
Opening before us is a view of Nevsky Prospekt looking towards the Fontanka River from the Green (Politseysky) Bridge, constructed in 1720 over the Moyka River. Across the river on the left are the one-storey house of Peter I's architect J. B. Le Blond, the two-storey building of the Central Police Administration, and the bell tower of the Lutheran Church. In the distance on the right are the high bell tower and spire of the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin, which was built in 1737 from a design by M. G. Zemtsov and later destroyed as a result of the construction of the Kazan Cathedral. This view in perspective is completed with the dome of the Anichkov Palace, the Anichkov Bridge, and the Triumphal Gates (1732-1742), also designed by Zemtsov. Sketches of the "perspective road" were made by Russian artist Mikhail Makhaev in the late 1740s. Engraved by the best artists of the Academy of Science, these prints were to form an album on the 50th anniversary of St. Petersburg's foundation.
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