Artwork Title: The Concert Hall, Stieglitz Mansion

The Concert Hall, Stieglitz Mansion

Luigi Premazzi

Artwork Title: The Concert Hall, Stieglitz MansionArtwork Title: The Concert Hall, Stieglitz MansionArtwork Title: The Concert Hall, Stieglitz Mansion
Baron Alexander von Stieglitz (1 September 1814, St. Petersburg - 24 October 1884, St. Petersburg), Russian financier and philanthropist. Born the only son of Ludwig von Stieglitz - a Jewish German-born banker who immigrated to Russia and converted to Christianity, and who became court banker to Alexander I and was made a baron - he took over his father's banking business at the latter's death in 1843. He became Russia's leading financier, the first governor of the Bank of Russia and, in addition to contributing to many other charities and institutions, was founder of the Central College of Technical Drawing (now the A. L. Stieglitz St. Petersburg State Industrial Art Academy). His Renaissance Revival mansion on the English Embankment in St. Petersburg was constructed on the site of two older buildings - and at the enormous cost of 3.5 million rubles - from 1859 to 1862, to the designs of architect Alexander Krakau. After the death of Stieglitz in 1884, the mansion was inherited by his adopted daughter, and then purchased by the State Treasury in 1887 as the intended residence of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich shortly before his marriage to Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna, daughter of King George I of Greece. (The building is sometimes referred to as the palace of Grand Duke Paul.) After the death of his 20-year-old wife during the birth of their second child in 1891, the Grand Duke did not return to live in the building. For a long time afterward it stood vacant. Eventually it became home to various Soviet institutions, and was recently acquired by St. Petersburg State University. The university’s planned restoration is expected to cost 50 to 60 million dollars. The link below includes photographs of the present condition [as of 2014] of some of the rooms painted by Premazzi. (http://godsandfoolishgrandeur.blogspot.nl/2014/12/interiors-of-stieglitz-mansion-by-luigi.html)
Uploaded on Jul 28, 2017 by Suzan Hamer

Arthur is a
Digital Museum