For Catherine the Great, jewelry was about much more than adornment. The formidable Russian empress - who reigned from ...

Catherine's major influences on her adopted country were in expanding Russia's borders and continuing the process of Westernisation begun by Peter the Great ... presented the empress’s vision ...

Catherine is intelligent, resourceful and utterly determined. She faces challenges on all sides, but everyone has underestimated the new Empress ... and turning Russia into one of the great powers of ...

For Catherine the Great, jewelry was about much more than adornment. The formidable Russian empress — who reigned ... a significant collector of Imperial Russia-era art.