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COXE’S TRAVELS IN RUSSIA. 677
A winter and fummer garden, comprifed within the fite of the building, are fingular
euriofities, and fuch as do not perhaps occur in any other palacein Europe. ‘The fum-
mer garden, in the true Afiatic ftyle, occupies the whole level roof of the edifice: but
at this feafon of the year was buried under the fnow. ‘The winter garden is roofed and
furrounded with glafs frames; it isa high and fpacious hot houfe, laid out in gravel
walks, ornamented with parterres of flowers, orange trees, and other fhrubs, and peopled
with feveral birds of fundry forts and various climates, which flitted from tree to tree.
The whole exhibited a pleafing effe&t, and was more delightful as being contrafted with
the dreary feafon of the year.
A magnificent range of buildings has been recently added to the Imperial palace ; ‘it
joins the Hermitage, and is fo extenfive that it may be called another palace. A fuperb
fuite of apartments, chiefly occupied by the Emprefs, contains the cabinet of pictures,
principally compofed of the following colleétions :
1. ‘The celebrated collection of Crozat, at Paris, which vied with that of the Duke
of Orleans; it confifted of more than three hundred and feventy pieces, including
various fketches. :
2. The fmall but well-chofen colle€tion of counfellor Tronchin, of Geneva; in which
may be noticed feveral by Teniers, and a Chrift bearing the crofs, by Ludovico Caracci,
half length, of the natural fize; the countenance expreflive of that meek dignity by
which the founder of the Bolognefe {chool peculiarly charaéterifed the Saviour of
mankind.
3. The collection of Count Bruhl, remarkable for twelve Woverman’s; a Holy
Family, by Watteau; an Ecce Homo, by Caravagio; a painter who fucceeded in
delineating fimple nature and low life, but was extremely deficient in treating dignified
fubjects.
i Part of the colle&tion of the Chevalier Bardouin, purchafed at Paris ; the poffeflor
referving to himfelf feveral landfcapes by the Dutch mafters, and Vernet. Among the
pictures which came to the Emprefs, I obferved fome excellent paintings by Rubens
and Vandyke, particularly an ineftimable head of Henry the Fourth, by Rubens, a
Study after Nature, for the Luxemburgh gallery, greatly expreffive of that vivacity and
bon-hommie which charatterifed that amiable monarch; two, by Ferdinand Bol; feveral,
by Rembrandt, in his {trong but uncouth manner, and two lovely groupes of children’s
heads, in the charaéters of angels, by the inimitable Corregio.
5- The collection of Houghton-houfe, the lofs of which all lovers of the arts mult
fincerely regret, and upon which I need not enlarge, as the pictures are well known, .
from the catalogue publifhed by Horace Walpole, and from the engravings by Boydel.
6. A collection from Venice, containing feveral, by old Palma, Titian, Paul Verouefe,
and the Baffans; many of which are, perhaps, not originals.
Of the Roman fchool the Emprefs poffeffes three capital pictures, by Raphael, which
belonged to the cabinet of Crozat: a Holy Family, in that great mafter’s beft manner,
and in the higheft prefervation ; a Portrait of Cardinal Pole, alfo in his beft manne:
and a St. George, of which there is an engraving by Vofterman. 1 muft not omit.an
old and excellent copy of the School of Athens, of which the original frefco painting in
the Vatican, for compofition, correctnefs of defign, and juft delineation of character, is
unrivalled.
Several fine landfcapes by Claude Lorraine, the painter of nature, and two by Gaf-
par Pouffin, in which that poetical painter, fo remarkable for his picturefque pencil, has
delineated towers and battlements, :
** Bofom’d high in tufted trees;7?
and
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