1859 · The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Konstantin Andreyevich Ukhtomsky was a Russian watercolourist who recorded with precision the interiors in the New Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Seeking to perpetuate Voltaire's memory in Russia after his death, Empress Catherine II commissioned Jean-Antoine Houdon, then one of the most famous sculptors, to make the statue of the philosopher seated in an armchair that now adorns the Hermitage collection of Neoclassical sculpture.Show more