Pierre-Ambroise Richebourg
Dome of Saint Isaac’s, Saint Petersburg

Public Domain

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Artist Pierre-Ambroise RichebourgFrench, 1810–1875

CultureFrench

Titles

Dome of Saint Isaac’s, Saint Petersburg

Date1859

Place depictedSaint Petersburg, Russia

MediumAlbumen silver print from glass negative

DimensionsImage: 10 5/8 × 10 5/8 in. (27 × 27 cm)
Sheet: 10 5/8 × 10 5/8 in. (27 × 27 cm)
Mount: 22 × 17 1/4 in. (55.9 × 43.8 cm)

Credit LineGift of Manfred Heiting, the Manfred Heiting Collection

Object number2004.638

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Special Collections

Manfred Heiting Collection of Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionWhen Pierre-Ambroise Richebourg traveled to Saint Petersburg in 1859, the Russian Orthodox cathedral dedicated to Saint Isaac of Dalmatia was a magnificent new feature of the city’s skyline and a remarkable feat of architecture and engineering by the French architect Auguste Montferrand. After forty years of construction, the cathedral—the third largest in Europe after Saint Peter’s in Rome and Saint Paul’s in London—had been consecrated the previous year, on May 30, 1858. From directly below and with light streaming in as if divinely sent, Richebourg photographed the enormous cast-iron dome with its twenty-foot-high gilt statues (also produced with new technology, electrotyping), Karl Briullov’s vast painting of the Virgin Mary surrounded by saints and angels, and a white sculpted dove, representing the Holy Spirit, suspended from the central point of the dome.
ProvenanceMayer & Mayer, Stuttgart; Manfred Heiting, December 9, 1989.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Printed in black, recto, bottom center: SAINT-ISAAC // GRANDE COUPOLE.
Printed in black, recto, bottom edge: Richebourg, Photogr. Pl. 10 Gide, editeur. Paris.
Marked, verso, lower right corner: MHC 1020

There is no evident signature.

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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