SAINT-PETERSBURG IMPERIAL TAPESTRY MANUFACTORY Saint Peter the Apostle, late 18th century

wool 115 x 80 cm This tapestry is after the painting by Guido Reni that was purchased by Catherine II for the Imperial Hermitage. Since the second half of the 18th century, tapestries (lint-free carpets with a hand-woven plot or ornamental design) began to appear in Russia as gifts from ambassadors of Western Europe. In 1716, Peter the Great visited the famous Royal Tapestry Manufactory (The Gobelins Manufactory) in Paris and recruited several experienced weavers, and since that time the history of training of Russian specialists and formation of Russian tapestry art started. The Imperial Tapestry Manufactory was founded by Peter the Great in St.-Petersburg in 1717. By the end of the 18th century, works that had skillfully copied pictorial originals by well-known Western and Russian painters occupied a large share of the manufactory’s output. The influence of the canons of beauty that had developed at the end of the 17th century in the Academy of Rome and Bologna in Italy is apparent in the interpretation of the images. The works of the Italian academy artists Carracci and Guido Reni, as well as those of Russian artists of the academic school - A. Losenko, G. Ugryumov and S. Shchedrin - are becoming popular.