The Eighteenth Century
palace of the Russian Emperors. In her reign a great number of vast and magnificent palaces were built, or completely rebuilt, in Petrograd, Moscow, Kiev and elsewhere. Under Elizabeth were erected the best and most luxurious Rococo style buildings in Russia: the Smolny Monastery, the Troitzky Hermitage, the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Kiev, and others. It was in her time that the Russian magnates, Stroganovs, Vorontzovs, Shuvalovs, Sheremetyevs, imitating the example set by the Queen, began to build in a magnificent and truly European manner. Toward the end of her reign Petrograd and its environs assumed the appearance which they have preserved to a considerable degree to this very day. In the talented Rastrelli, Elizabeth found her Lebrun. But new legions of masters were needed for the execution of his innumerable and always excellent projects—all the more since some of the artists imported by Peter were already in the grave. Others, Pillement and Pinaud among them, not finding enough work, had returned home; others again were so old that they could not keep pace with the feverish activity of the young generation. Among the artists imported in the reign of Elizabeth the most noteworthy are: G. H. Grot, a somewhat manneristic master, but an artist of an unusually delicate and soft brush; his brother, I. F. Grot, one of the best animalists of his time; Valeriani,
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