Catherine the Great Visiting the Ice Mountain, St. Petersburg
by PATERSSON, Benjamin, Grey ink and watercolour, heightened with gouache on paper, 460 x 695 mm
Catherine the Great (1729-1796) is being led from the direction of the Winter Palace, by a procession of mounted guardsmen, towards the temporary ‘ice mountain’, on the frozen River Neva. Sliding down its frozen slopes was one of Catherine’s great pleasures. The entire crowd looks on at their Empress in awe, their hats off and some bow their heads. Decorative blue and white andreyevsky (the cross of St. Andrew) flags are flying on top of the ice mountain. The crowd is about to witness Catherine the Great joining them in her favourite winter pastime of riding down the ice slide. The Imperial Academy of Arts, only recently christened by Catherine, can be glimpsed in the background.
The painting is signed, inscribed and dated lower right: ‘Benj:Patersson pinxit 1788’.