This sumptuously illustrated book coincides with the bicentenary of the death of the Empress Catherine the Great. It examines the story of the acquisition of these treasures and of the cultural relations between Britain and Russia in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The distinguished art critic John Russell provides an introduction for this book, and eminent British and Russian scholars offer chapters on such topics as British gardeners and the vogue of the English Garden, the sale of Sir Robert Walpole's remarkable collection of Old Master paintings from Houghton Hall to Catherine the Great, British architects at the Imperial court as well as articles on silver, porcelain and engraved gems. This book is the catalogue for the exhibition organised by the Yale Center for British Art and the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg which opens at the Yale Center for British Art in October 1996.