Jean-François Thomas de Thomon Drawings for Saint Petersburg

The exhibition is a cooperation between the Tchoban Foundation and the Kunstbibliothek - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, and is made possible by loans from the Kunstbibliothek’s collection.

St Petersburg was founded in 1703 by Tsar Peter the Great as the ‘window to Europe’ and owes its architectural and urban aspect not least to well-known builders and urban planners from abroad, especially from Western Europe, who were active in the young Russian capital. The importance of these architects for the development of St Petersburg and their influence on Russian culture in general was so great that Russian scholars coined a special term for their works: rossika.

The exhibition affords an insight into the work of these artists in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a period of incipient political and social upheaval that historians call ‘the beginning of the long nineteenth century’ (Eric Hobsbawm) and the Sattelzeit (Reinhart Koselleck). It was an epoch that played a key role in political and social development and in forming the concepts of modernity.

In the history of architecture and building, the successor to the Baroque style was the Neo-Classical, which is often referred to in Europe as ‘Empire’ and in Russia as ‘Alexandrian Classicism’. The Russian Empire at this time was striving for supremacy in Europe and, like the British Empire and Napoleonic France, asserted an imperial claim that was also to find expression in architecture.

The French architect Jean-François Thomas de Thomon (1760–1813), from whom the majority of the drawings in the exhibition originate, struck a chord in St Petersburg with his neo-classical style.

Thomon, born in Paris with the civil name of Jean-François Thomas, began his studies at the Académie royale d’architecture in Paris in 1777, travelled through Italy for several years and, a staunch royalist, quit turbulent revolutionary France in 1790.

This drawing by Thomon shows a view and the ground and first floor plan of the Anitschkow Palace in St. Petersburg. The building still exists today.

His path led him first to Vienna and then, via Riga, to St. Petersburg, where, blessed with drawing talent and endowed with the necessary ambition, he created his most celebrated works. Possessing the requisite social skills and flair for presenting himself, he gained access to the high aristocratic circles of Russia, including the court of the tsar, and thus to important and well-paid commissions.

As early as 1800, the Petersburg Academy of Arts awarded him the title of academic for his outstanding drawing skills and works. He received a professorship at the Academy and drew plans for the Kazan Cathedral, which was under construction. His three drawings are part of a series of 34 large-format drawings that the Kunstbibliothek was able to acquire from a private collection in 1974.

His most famous projects include the Big Stone Theatre (Bolshoi Theatre) and the design of the eastern tip of Vasilyevsky Island with the Stock Exchange.

The drawings by Thomon exhibited here were probably a presentation album that the architect assembled for a noble client.

The album includes not only his own designs but also copies of important buildings by his colleagues, Giacomo Quarenghi (1744–1817), Luigi Rusca (1758-1822), Andrei N. Voronikhin (1759-1814) and Andrejan D. Sacharow (1761-1811). Since many of the original plans and drawings by the other architects are no longer preserved, these drawings are valuable as an important source of architectural history as well as for their artistic quality.

The so-called Cameron Gallery was drawn by Thomon's colleague Giacomo Quarenghi and is still in Zarskoje Selo today.

Thomon's works are not architectural project drawings in the usual sense: Thomas de Thomon depicts the buildings in a picturesque staging, but also their cuts are depicted in the moving moor landscape on the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea. You can feel the low-lying clouds coming from the sea, the sunlight falling through them enchants the viewer. The depicted lighting mood and the colors of the buildings can still be experienced today.

Thomas de Thomon was torn from life early in 1813 by the consequences of an accident on the construction site of the Bolshoi Theater. Jean-François Thomas de Thomon and his circle have shaped one of the most vibrant European cities to this day. Their buildings are a source of identity for Europe’s cultural heritage.