Catherine was born Sophie Friedericke Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst in 1729, the daughter of a minor German prince. She came to Russia at age 14 to marry another German prince, Karl Peter Ulrich of Holstein-Gottorb, whom his aunt, the Empress Elizabeth of Russia (youngest daughter of Peter the Great), had adopted and proclaimed her heir. He thus became Peter Fedorovich, Grand Duke of Russia in 1742. His aunt, on the advice of Frederick II, chose Sophie as a suitable wife for her nephew.

Sophie's journey to becoming the great czarina of Russia began on Jan. 1, 1744 when a letter arrived at her home from Russia inviting her and her mother to Moscow. The two reached the city in February of that year and in June Sophie converted to the Russian Orthodox faith and was baptize Ekaterina (Catherine) Alexeyevna, thus paving the way for her marriage to the heir to the throne of Russia. The wedding between Catherine and Peter took place on August 21, 1745. From the very beginning it was an unhappy union, and both sought other companions. Catherine gives birth to a son in 1754, whose legitimacy stood in question, but Empress Elizabeth immediately took over the care of the infant, Paul. A daughter born in 1757 and most likely the result of another extramarital affair, died in 1759.

Throughout all of these years, the ambitious young Catherine went about educating herself in the arts, literature, languages, politics, law and the affairs of state in Russia. While her husband looked for inspiration toward Prussia, she became a fervent Russian nationalist.

Peter's aunt died in December 1761 and he was crowned Czar Peter III in January 1762. Enemies of the state, who had been exiled by his aunt upon her accession, received amnesty in his first official act. Shortly after, he recalled the victorious Russian troops from East Prussia and Pomerania and made peace with Frederick II. He thereby withdrew from the Seven Years' War, which Elizabeth had entered on the side of France and Austria. He began to reform the Russian army based on the model of Prussia, formed an alliance with Frederick II, and began to plan a war against Denmark in the hope of restoring Schleswig to his Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp.

One of Peter's reforms banned persecution of dissenters, and he dissolved the Privy Council. He needed, however, to gain the favour of the aristocracy. Hence, by special degree he released the gentry from compulsory state service, but this did not help his cause. One of his biggest mistakes, however, may have been to attempt to force the Russian Orthodox Church to adopt Lutheran practices.

None of this went over well in Catherine's circle, and a plot was soon hatched to overthrow Peter III. The depth of Catherine's involvement in the coup d'état is not clear. She had given birth to a son, Alexei in April of 1762, fathered by her lover, Count Grigory Orlov. It was Orlov and three of his brothers who led the coup. On June 28 they forced Peter to sign his abdication in favour of Catherine, and then imprisoned him. Soon after, he was assassinated by strangulation, presumably by Count Alexei Orlov. Although no one, including his supposed guards, was punished for the crime, there is no proof that Catherine ordered the murder. Contemporary reports, however, state she showed no sign of sorrow or regret over the regicide. In September of that year, Catherine was crowned Empress Catherine II in Moscow.

In 1763 she began her years of correspondence with Voltaire, and with the writer and encyclopedist Diterot. The latter became her primary artistic advisor and agent in Paris. In the following year she acquired several European Old Master paintings, the first in a collection that would eventually total 4,000 works. These became the nucleus of The Hermitage collection, which today exceeds three million pieces of art of every kind.

Having inherited the Winter Palace from Empress Elizabeth, Catherine set about to enlarge it. She hired the French architect Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe to carry out the task. But within a decade she had so many works that she needed more space and she brought the German-trained architect, Yury Velten, to Russia to build yet another addition to the Winter Palace.

It is, therefore, the Catherine who fostered the arts, who is celebrated in this exhibit, which was organized by the AGO, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and The State Hermitage Museum. It is the third exhibition at the AGO to offer treasures from The Hermitage to the Canadian public. Like the other two, this show has come about, in part, through the efforts of a group of Canadians, who have created The Hermitage Museum Foundation of Canada. The group's laudable aim is to help restore and organize the aging Russian museum in St. Petersburg, most sadly neglected under the Soviet regime.

Catherine's formidable will and determination can be seen in a series of drawings by the Dutch artist, Jacob van der Schley, who worked in St. Petersburg from 1768 to '75. He in turn based his drawings on those made by a Russian artist, Yury Fel'ten. These depict the moving of the Thunder-Stone, a piece of granite weighing 1,100 metric tons, from the Karelian Forest at the Gulf of Finland to Senate Square in St. Petersburg. Catherine wanted it for the base of a statue of Peter the Great. The same subject is also depicted by several other artists because this venture turned into one of the 18^th century's most talked about engineering exploits in Europe. Catherine not only did not spare any costs to achieve her wish, but also had no compunction to use manpower regardless of the cost of life and limb. It must be remembered that Catherine crushed a peasant rebellion in 1775, and subsequently strengthened the serf laws that bound the peasants ever tighter to their masters. What Catherine wanted, she got. The work was finally completed in 1782. The unveiled statue revealed this inscription beneath it on Catherine's command: Petro Primo/Catherina Secunda. She clearly saw herself as the direct heir of Peter the Great.

Unfortunately, we see little else of this ruthless determination in this show, though we do get to see much of her vainglorious self-image. Catherine frequently had herself painted, sculpted, or replicated on coins and medals in the image of Minerva until the French Revolution put an end to her fervor for the antiquities of Greece and Rome.

When Catherine commissioned the French artist Elisabeth Vigée le Brun, herself a refugee from the Revolution, to paint the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Alekseyevna, she wanted no classical image. Instead, she has the artist paint Elizabeth, her grandson and heir-to-be Alexander's wife, in Russian royal attire to show her as a contemporary woman. What is interesting about this painting is that while Elizabeth is busy with her flowers, a bust of Catherine is barely visible in the shadows. As we look at this painting from 1795 now, it appears to foretell that just a year later the empress will die and the scepter will eventually be passed from Catherine to Elizabeth. But first Catherine's son, Paul I, would rule in a slightly more liberal fashion than his mother, but he was assassinated in 1801. Alexander I came on the throne and ruled until 1825 with Elizabeth at his side.

Catherine managed to amass paintings by such British artists as Sir Joshua Reynolds and Joseph Wright of Derby, French artists Claude Lorraine, Nicolas Poussin and Eustace le Sueur. There are several works by the German, Anton Raphael Mengs, who counted among his students Goya, Richard Brompton — who is also represented in this exhibition in a portrait of Grand Dukes Alexander and Constantine Pavlovich — and J.F.A. Tischbein, a cousin of J.H.W. Tischbein. The latter painted the impressive 'Conradin of Swabia and Frederick of Baden informed of their impending execution while imprisoned in Naples' that is part of the exhibit.

This show, however, is not just about paintings. There are jewels, dishes of various kinds, snuff boxes, cameos, medal cases, a fire-screen, furniture, sculptures, even an ice-cream cooler, and the Romanov coach in which Catherine rode to her coronation. Some of these objects d'art border on the gaudy, including the French-built coach, while others offer a clean, classical line that is impressive to observe.

Everything chosen for the exhibition seems to be aimed at minimizing the more sensational or dynamic aspects of Catherine's character. There is, of course, a painting of 'The Destruction of the Turkish Fleet in Chesme Harbour', painted by German artist Jacob Philipp Hackert, and works depicting a few other military exploits, but they are kept to a minimum given the vast amount of military art of Catherine's many expansionist military adventures that surely must be in the bosom of the Hermitage.

One also has to look very carefully for works that depict some of her more famous lovers. The fire screen gives us a faint view of Count Orlov being decorated for his victory over the Turks. There is a painting of Alexander Lanskoy by an unknown artist. Lanskoy was the youngest of her lovers, and one of several chosen for her by her most steady lover, Prince Grigory Potemkin. When Lanskoy died the distraught Catherine had him buried in Sophia and built a church over his grave. The Austrian painter Johann Baptist Lampi painted a portrait of Potempkin that is placed in this exhibition in a manner that one is apt to walk past without notice. I glimpsed it only after working my way backwards again through the show to make sure I hadn't missed something. There is also a marble statue of the man, who chose her lovers to ensure his own position with Catherine while away on military business. We know him also for the phrase: "Potemkin Village", which stands for something that appears elaborate and impressive but in actual fact lacks substance because Potemkin had elaborate fake villages constructed for Catherine's tours of the Ukraine and the Crimea.

Stepping away from the sensational aspects of her life, there are nine paintings by the Swiss Jean Huber that depict Voltaire in various aspects of his daily routine. Some of these are quite whimsical, but they speak of Catherine's admiration for the man. There are also busts of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Denis Diterot and, of course, of Voltaire.

All in all there are 217 items in this exhibition. That is a lot to see, and a great deal of it makes a visit to the show worthwhile. There is, however, a general lack of what can be called truly great artwork by artists of renown. Instead, there is a great deal of work by minor artists who will not register on the memory screen of the average onlooker. Besides, there is this nagging feeling that the curators chose works — or perhaps that the Canadian curators of the exhibition were given works by The Hermitage — that kind of whitewash Catherine's image.