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Queen of Spade’s Garden
Annotation
The idea for the project was inspired by the short story by A.S. Pushkin Queen of Spades and the rumors that swirled in the capital’s high society when many readers – even those in the imperial court – found a striking similarity between the old countess and Princess Natalya Petrovna Golitsyna, whose fate was so closely associated with the Maryino Estate in her advanced years.
The authors employed landscape techniques to convey to the viewer their interpretation of Pushkin’s story, illustrating the whims of fate and illusory nature of human dreams.
At the center of the composition, against a backdrop of white fill, a wrought partition has been installed, concealing a secluded garden much like the private palace gardens of the crowned heads of the day, with their exotic plants of rare species. The leaves of the partition are laced with greenhouse and garden plants in dark hues, adorned with symbols of the fateful cards – three, seven, ace.
Peeking through the partition is the silhouette of a beautiful Stranger in a quivering cloud of white violets in blossom – the disembodied spirit of the Queen of Spades, symbolizing fortune toying mercilessly with the passions of man.
The figure of the femme fatal is made of metal wire and adorned with a ribbon of white flowers depicting the “spade” suit, rendered using dark-leaved plants.