The Garden as Politics: Maria Feodorovna and Pavlovsk

David Roche Gallery welcomes Dr Ekaterina Heath for a special lecture exploring a way into imperial Russia through the life and work of Maria Feodorovna who shaped a garden and quietly influenced an empire.

The Garden as Politics: Maria Feodorovna and Pavlovsk

Thursday 17 September 2026 | 6:00pm–7:15pm

How can a woman with no direct access to power nevertheless influence politics? In 1777, a young Grand Duchess named Maria Feodorovna was given a modest wooden lodge outside St. Petersburg. Over the following decades, she developed it into Pavlovsk, one of imperial Russia's most ambitious garden landscapes. In her new book, Women, Gardens, and Agency in Imperial Russia (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026), Ekaterina Heath examines how Maria Feodorovna used architecture, art, and landscape design to influence political life in the Russian empire.

This talk draws on objects from the David Roche Collection to illustrate that world. Portraits of Catherine the Great (by Lampi) and Nicholas I (attributed to Kruger) frame the period on either side of Maria Feodorovna's project, while a pair of armchairs designed by Pavlovsk's architect, Andrei Voronikhin, and porcelain associated with Tsar Paul I's table offer a more intimate sense of the palace's daily and ceremonial life. A cameo of Catherine the Great as Minerva, designed by Maria Feodorovna herself, points to how portraiture and image-making were used as tools of political messaging.

Combining art history with the material culture of the Russian court, this talk offers a way into imperial Russia through the life and work of a woman who shaped a garden and quietly influenced an empire.

About Dr Ekaterina Heath

Ekaterina Heath is an art historian based at the University of Sydney, where she works across the History and Art History departments. Her research focuses on Russian imperial visual and material culture, with particular interests in garden history, the Russian court, and the artistic legacies of the Romanov era.

Each ticket includes one beverage on arrival.

Limited parking available on-site.

Wheelchair accessible.

Image: Portrait of Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna (Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg) (1795), Johann Baptist von Lampi, Pavlovsk Palace Museum. Photo: Mark Tedeschi, used with permission.