The sculpture deserves a story of its own

The sculpture deserves a story of its own. If you are not lucky enough to see it at Versailles, be sure to look at the bust when it returns home to Saint Petersburg.

It is one of two busts of Peter made by Rastrelli, but perhaps the most outstanding. In 1719 Carlo Bartolomeo Rastrelli had the good fortune to take a wax mask from the Tsar's face; on the basis of that mask he made a plaster copy of the head, which is kept in the Russian Museum, as is the Baroque cast-iron bust made from it. In 1723 Peter asked Rastrelli to make a half-length portrait of him, and by the summer of 1724 both Petrine busts had been completed: the Caesarian and the Baroque. A little later, by 1729, Rastrelli's craftsmen would make one more Baroque bust, this time not in cast iron but in bronze; it is now on display in the Hermitage.

The Caesarian bust would be reproduced many times, in bronze-coated lead and in alabaster, as a gift to the Emperor's friends. One of the copies survives in the Netherlands, where it arrived as a present to the Danish king Frederick IV. In this sculpture Peter wears a tunic and a breastplate with the head of the Gorgon Medusa.

The bust in the new manner is adorned with far richer detail. Peter is in battle armour, with the ribbon of the Order of Saint Andrew the First-Called, a lace scarf at his neck over a standing collar, and an ermine mantle on his left shoulder. The cuirass is covered in intricate ornament, which on closer inspection turns out to be allegorical bas-reliefs.

The left plate of the cuirass shows a scene from the Battle of Poltava, with Peter on horseback. On the right plate is Peter the sculptor with a chisel, carving the figure of a woman in an imperial crown, who personifies Russia. On the shield beside Peter the sculptor is the Saint Andrew's cross, symbolising naval victories. The breastplate of the armour bears a battle scene.