Milkmaid (Girl-with-a-pitcher) fountain, Tsarskoe Selo

The Milkmaid of Tsarskoye Selo (also known as Girl with a pitcher) (other names: Milkwoman, Tsarskoye Selo Statue, Peretta) is a fountain in the Catherine Park of Tsarskoye Selo in St. Petersburg (designed by Augustin Betancourt, sculpted by Pavel Sokolov). It is a monument of garden and park architecture and sculpture from the early 19th century, of both federal and international importance. It became known as Tsarskoye Selo Statue. The sculpture has become a poetic symbol of the Tsarskoye Selo gardens. According to Vsevolod Petrov, senior researcher of the Painting Department of the Russian Museum, the sculpture represents the pinnacle of Pavel Sokolov's work and is among the most beautiful achievements of Russian garden sculpture. Contemporaries assumed that the source of the plot for the sculpture was La Fontaine's fable The Milkmaid, or the Jug of Milk. Some researchers see in the sculpture a portrait of the wife of Emperor Alexander I, Elizabeth Alexeevna, and believe that the fountain is an allegory of her mourning for her daughters who died in infancy and her lover who died shortly before. The fountain inspired a large number of Russian cultural figures to create literary and musical works. Among them are the poems Tsarskoye Selo Statue by Alexander Pushkin and Anna Akhmatova, and the romance The Pushkin's Statue of Tsarskoye Selo by Caesar

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