1771-1787: Construction of the Great Hermitage

In 1771-87, on the bank of the Neva, next to the Small Hermitage, a new building was constructed to the order of Empress Catherine II, which was to become known as the Great Hermitage. Yuri Velten, the architect, was instructed to create a building which could accommodate the Empress's ever-expanding library and collections of works of art. Although it was in the austere 18th-century Neoclassical style, the three-storey structure was nonetheless in keeping with the overall palace ensemble. Decoration of the façade is based on a combination of vertical and horizontal lines.
In 1792, Giacomo Quarenghi built an extension to the Great Hermitage to house the Raphael Loggias, an 18th-century copy of the famous gallery in the Vatican, Rome.