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The Marble Palace, located between the vast Field of Mars (Marsovo Pole) and the mighty Neva River, is truly memorable for its stern beauty. It was commissioned by Catherine the Great for her favourite count Grigory Orlov. The palace was designed and built in 1768-85 by an Italian-born architect Antonio Rinaldi. The stern-looking palace was richly decorated: 32 different types of marble were used for its decoration. The Marble Hall, one of the very few surviving original interiors, gives a good idea of Rinaldi's splendid designs.
When Orlov died in 1783, the palace was given to the last Polish king Stanislaw Ponjatovsky, who by then lived permanently in St. Petersburg. Upon his death the palace became an official residence of various Grand Dukes, prominent members of the Russian Royal Family. In 1937 the Museum of Vladimir Lenin took over the Marble Palace. The historic armoured car of the Bolshevik Revolution was put in its courtyard. In the early 1990s the palace was given to the Russian Museum and the armoured car was replaced by an equestrian statue of Emperor Alexander III.
Since the spring of 1998 visitors come to the Marble Palace specifically for the excellent Russian Avant-garde exhibit, which is called "Museum within Museum: The Museum of Art Culture in the Russian Museum". Reconstructing perhaps the best Russian Avant-garde exhibit of the 20th century (put together by Kazimir Malevitch in 1920s) it attempts to put this kind of art into a wider historical perspective.
Another regular feature of the Marble Palace is the "Peter Ludwig Museum at The Russian Museum". This collection of the 20th century art originated as a gift from a famous European art collector Peter Ludwig. If you like modern art - this is the place to go. Those who love the old European art will certainly enjoy the exhibition "Foreign Artists in Russia (the 18th and the 19th centuries)". Numerous foreign artists found warm reception in the Imperial Russia. Many of them settled in Russia and became very successful. Some even painted stories from Russia's ancient past.
