Catherine's Monument for Peter
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	Jacobus van der Schley (1715–1779) Engraving depicting the delivery of the “Thunder Stone” for the base of the statue of Peter the Great St. Petersburg, ca. 1770 NYPL, Slavic and Baltic Division Early in her reign, Catherine sought to honor her illustrious, westernizing predecessor with a monument. The famous equestrian statue of Peter the Great was executed in bronze on a massive granite base – the “Thunder Stone” – by Étienne-Maurice Falconet (1716–1791) assisted by Marie-Anne Collot (1748–1821) and formally unveiled in St. Petersburg in 1782. Inscribed, in Russian and Latin, “To Peter the First from Catherine the Second,” the monument became known as the Bronze Horseman from the celebrated 1833 poem of that title by Aleksandr Pushkin (1799–1837). This plate, showing Catherine in elegant ermine-trimmed travel clothes standing among her courtiers, is one of a series of three that depicted the moving of the 2,000-ton stone, found close to the banks of the Lakhta River near St. Petersburg. In the autumn of 1768 it was lifted onto special rails and carried to shore via a system of rollers, winches, and levers designed by Count Marinos Charboures (d. 1782). Workers then transported it on a barge flanked by two sailing ships to Senate Square in St. Petersburg, where it was offloaded and carved.