Catherine the Great
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Catherine II, commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the Empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after a coup d'état against her husband, Peter III. Her long reign helped Russia thr
Portrait, 1780s
Catherine in her childhood, by Anna Rosina de Gasc, 1742
Catherine as Grand Duchess around the time of her marriage (portrait by Georg Christoph Grooth, 1745)
An equestrian portrait of Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseyevna from before 1749
During and after the reign of the Empress Catherine II of Russia, whose long rule led to the modernisation of the Russian Empire, many urban legends arose, some based on true events, concerning her se
Catherine the Great
…in Ukraine after she dismissed him in 1777. The last of her lovers, Platon Zubov, was 40 years her junior. Her sexual independence led to many of the legends about her. Catherine kept her illegitimate son by Grigory Orlov (Alexis Bobrinsky, later elevated to Count Bobrinsky by Paul I) near Tula, away from her court…
Empress Catherine the Great is popularly remembered for her promiscuity.
Catherine II's bedroom in the so-called Zubov Wing of the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo was constructed between 1781 and 1783 and adorned with thin plates of milky white polished glass; contemporary drawing in the National Museum in Warsaw.