The Shah's Present: The Collection of Prince Soltikoff and the 1829 Mission of Prince Khosrow Mirza exhibition at the Arsenal pavilion in the Alexander Park of Tsarskoe Selo showcases a few objects from the State Hermitage Museum. The exhibition runs till 23 August 2026 and is available as part of the Arsenal tour.
The artefacts date back to the late nineteenth–early twentieth century and originate from Iran. On display are a velvet horse cover with Rasht embroidery and the head and neck pieces of a horse harness set decorated with gold, silver, emeralds, beryls, turquoise, rubies, aquamarine and spinel.
They were brought to St Petersburg in the summer of 1829 by the mission of Prince Khosrow Mirza, a sixteen-year-old grandson of Fath-Ali Shah Qajar, shah of Iran.The diplomatic embassy led by Prince Khosrow Mirza was sent to Russia to offer an official apology, deliver gifts, and appease Emperor Nicholas I to avoid further military conflict after the massacre of the Russian embassy in Tehran on 30 January 1829, which involved the death of the diplomat and writer Alexander Griboedov.
Khosrow Mirza presented the horse cover and harness to Prince Peter Saltykov (Pierre Soltikoff), who welcomed the Iranian mission into his St Petersburg mansion to observe a ceremonial prayer service at Tsarina's Meadow (now Mars Field) on the occasion of Russia's victory in the Russo–Turkish War of 1828–29.
One of the largest nineteenth-century European collectors, Prince Peter Saltykov moved permanently to Paris in 1840. By the late 1850s, his collection of antiquities was unrivaled in Europe and occupied two mansions in the center of the French capital. After Saltykov's bankruptcy in 1861, a total of 1,109 items from his famous collection were auctioned. The rarest and most valuable pieces went to England, where they formed the core of the medieval collection of the newly established Victoria and Albert Museum. The Western European weapons were acquired by Emperor Napoleon III. The Eastern weapons — including the Iranian cover and harness on our display — were purchased by a French banker who immediately resold them to Emperor Alexander II for his collection at the Arsenal of Tsarskoe Selo (now at the State Hermitage).