Wunderkammer

Lithography begins with a stone: the artist draws directly on smooth limestone, and thousands of prints are pulled from it. Honoré Daumier worked with such stones for thirty years, satirizing the July Monarchy. For "Gargantua," he was imprisoned in Sainte-Pélagie, and after "Rue Transnonain," the government bought up the prints and destroyed the stone itself. Ten of his sheets, from the pear-shaped Louis-Philippe to the Bonapartist scoundrel Ratapoil, demonstrate how a cheap newspaper image became both a weapon and an art form.

A series of exquisite etchings depicting Roman emperors from Julius Caesar to Domitian. Based on the biographies of Suetonius and inspired by the compositions of Antonio Tempesta, this work combines the precision of classical iconography with the expressive technique of early Baroque. Schiaminossi's engravings impress with their masterful use of chiaroscuro and attention to detail, conveying the grandeur, character, and symbolic power of the rulers of ancient Rome.

"In St. Petersburg, two types of architecture prevail: Greek and Roman," — this is how the capital of the Russian state was described by the prominent historian and local historian Ivan Ilyich Pushkaryov. The founder of the city, Emperor Peter, in an attempt to distance himself from the Moscow he disliked, which called itself the Third Rome, laid the foundation for a new ancient city on the northern shores of the Neva. Absorbing the entire "spirit" and longing for antiquity, St. Petersburg recreated it in the strict plans of its architectural ensembles, classical colonnades, and triumphal arches.