The Russians' ability to find and borrow what is best in the culture of their European neighbors is the theme of this exhibition catalogue. Tsar Peter borrowed scholars for his new institution of learning, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and opened a tapestry factory in St. Peterburg with French craftsmen after seeing the work of the Gobelins' factory during his 1717 trip to Paris. Empress Elizabeth borrowed fashions insisting on first choice from every ship bearing fabrics or dresses from France. Catherine the Great borrowed the ideas of the Enlightenment, even importing one of its proponents Denis Diderot, though she made sure to adapt them to her form of autocracy. The curators of the exhibition on which this catalogue is based have drawn on St. Petersburg's museums, libraries, and archives to demonstrate graphically (cataloguing 584 items) the various ways in which France and the French left a mark on the imperial capital: through architecture, painting, drawing, sculpture, furniture, design, fashion, learning, literature, and language. -- Summary written by John W. Emerich, Bronze Horseman Literary Agency.
