What remains of Bove’s Triumphal Arch and why its sculptures spark debate

Moscow’s Triumphal Arch preserves Osip Bove’s design and the appearance of the 1834 gateway, but the present structure on Kutuzovsky Prospekt was built in 1966–1968 on a different site. Original elements from the 1830s survive, including examples in the collection of the A. V. Shchusev Museum of Architecture. Published sources give conflicting accounts of the origins of all the sculptures on the present monument: even different sections of a single heritage protection report offer contradictory answers.

Which arch stood at Tverskaya Zastava?

Bove’s stone Triumphal Gate was built in 1829–1834 at the entrance to Moscow on the road from St Petersburg. According to the 2022 historical and cultural expert assessment report, the foundation stone was laid in August 1829. The structure commemorated victory in the Patriotic War of 1812. Its predecessor was a temporary wooden gateway erected here in 1814: the question of surviving elements concerns the later stone gateway.

By 1826, the wooden arch needed to be replaced with a permanent structure. Osip Bove designed a stone gateway, which was completed in 1834. This sequence matters when reading accounts of the city: the dates 1814, 1834 and 1968 refer to three distinct phases of construction, even though they share a commemorative theme and a similar architectural form.

At Tverskaya Zastava, Bove’s arch formed an ensemble with guardhouses on either side. Surviving drawings and lithographs, seen by a Kommersant correspondent at a museum exhibition in 2012, showed the central passage and two flanking buildings. On Kutuzovsky Prospekt, only the arch was built, without the wings or the railings that connected them. So even an exact reproduction of the monument’s silhouette could not preserve the original ensemble in its entirety.

The sculptural scheme was integral to the architecture. Ivan Vitali and Ivan Timofeyev worked on the decoration from Bove’s sketches. Warriors in niches, allegorical female figures, flying figures of Glory, the compositions ‘The Expulsion of the French’ and ‘Moscow Liberated’, military trophies and city coats of arms together told a story of war and victory. High above the arch stood a chariot drawn by six horses. This inventory matters when discussing authenticity: the word ‘sculptures’ covers many separate castings, and the history of one does not establish what happened to the others.

The heritage protection report describes two large high reliefs on either side of the arch. In ‘The Expulsion of the French’, warriors fight against the backdrop of the Kremlin wall; in ‘Moscow Liberated’, the city is represented by a woman holding a shield bearing an image of St George the Victorious. These are distinct narrative compositions. When a source refers to the survival of the ‘reliefs’, it is necessary to establish which composition and which version it means.

How was the sculptural programme for Bove’s gateway developed?

Bove, Ivan Vitali and Ivan Timofeyev undertook different parts of the work: the architect determined the gateway’s composition, the sculptors created its sculptural decoration, and the foundry workers cast the models in metal. All three are named in the monument’s official designation in the 2022 report. Art historian Sofya Tsaryova’s dissertation, based on archival documents and nineteenth-century accounts, explains why the names of those involved may have been recorded unevenly: commission records more often named the workshop owner than each sculptor working there.

The researcher identifies Timofeyev as Vitali’s collaborator on the decoration of the gateway at Tverskaya Zastava, citing Nikolai Ramazanov’s account. According to her research, Timofeyev worked in other people’s workshops and had none of his own. This explains why the absence of his surname from a particular contract record does not mean that he contributed no work. However, the dissertation does not assign every decorative element of the present arch to one or the other sculptor; such an element-by-element attribution cannot be inferred from a general statement that they collaborated.

The 2015 heritage protection inventory, reproduced in the 2022 report, describes the decoration by its position on the façade: warriors stand between the columns, allegorical female figures are placed above them, flying figures of Glory appear beside the vaults, and narrative high reliefs adorn the pylons. The cornice and friezes feature coats of arms, military emblems and foliate ornament, while a chariot drawn by six horses stands above the attic. Such an inventory helps avoid conflating different objects under the single word ‘sculpture’: the histories of a column, a high relief and the crowning composition are established through different documents.

Where was the nineteenth-century cast-iron decoration made?

The publications compared contain no consolidated list of all the foundries that produced cast iron for Bove’s gateway. A local history account from the Union of Small Towns links elements of Moscow’s Triumphal Arch to the Myshega works near Aleksin. In its description of an exhibition of castings from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts mentions the same works, owned by the Bibarsov princes, among the industrial enterprises of Kaluga Governorate. These references confirm the name of the works, but do not establish which workshops produced particular figures for the arch in the 1830s.

A different attribution appears in ‘The Batashevs: Moscow Heritage’, published by Vyksa Steel Works in 2022. Its authors state that the Batashev and Shepelev enterprises cast a substantial part of the decoration, including the figures and chariot, at Snoved. The publication credits the Vyksa Steel Works History Museum and the Museum of Architecture among those that supplied material; in the foreword, the compilers acknowledge that some projects had several suppliers and that not all products bore makers’ marks. This source therefore cannot be read as proof that every relief came from a single workshop.

The local history account of Aleksin and the book published by the Vyksa works offer different views of each enterprise’s share of the commission. They can be reconciled only at the level of a general conclusion: several works may have been involved in producing the decorative cast iron. For any particular figure, an acceptance record, a maker’s mark reliably linked to the object, or other documentation specific to that object is needed. The question of which foundry made it in the 1830s should be considered separately from what happened to the same form when the monument was recreated in the 1960s: a similar casting may have been made much later.

Not every dark decorative element on the original gateway was necessarily cast iron. Tsaryova cites an archival contract from 1834: the plaster modeller Vasily Sevryugin undertook to make and install 57 rosettes for the arch’s vault according to drawings. The dissertation describes them as modelled plasterwork, so their appearance alone is insufficient to classify them as historic cast-iron pieces. The 2022 report describes the rosettes in the present vault as plaster painted to resemble cast iron. Here, a similar form does not establish that the material or age is the same; the precise composition of an element is determined through examination and records of its manufacture.

The guardhouses had their own decoration. Ivan Yemelyanov created the plasterwork for these flanking buildings in 1830–1831; according to published research, almost all of it except the frieze had disappeared by the early twentieth century. So even a photograph of the gateway before its dismantling in 1936 does not necessarily show the ensemble as it was in 1834. Some of the original decoration was lost before demolition, and the history of its authenticity began long before the Soviet-era recreation.

What survived the dismantling in 1936?

Before the gateway was dismantled, architects made measured surveys, drawings, sketches and photographs. In 1936, the arch and guardhouses were dismantled during the redevelopment of the square outside Belorussky Station. Some sculptures and reliefs were transferred to the Museum of Architecture, then housed in the grounds of Donskoy Monastery. The heritage protection report also states that only one of the twelve old cast-iron columns survived: the others were melted down during the Great Patriotic War. The entire present row of columns therefore cannot be regarded as having been moved from Tverskaya Zastava.

After dismantling, the surviving elements of the gateway went to the Museum of Architecture. In 2012, a Kommersant correspondent described original cast-iron coats of arms and other fragments from the collection displayed at a museum exhibition, and saw some reliefs in the inner courtyard. The existence of an original demonstrates that nineteenth-century decoration has physically survived. It does not yet prove that a similar element on the 1968 arch is cast from that same metal: to reach such a conclusion, one must trace an individual object’s journey from museum storage to installation.

Measured surveys and photographs preserve an object’s dimensions and appearance, but not its physical fabric. These documents provided the basis for restorers to reproduce the silhouette and arrangement of the elements. An original cast-iron piece, a plaster cast taken from it and a new metal casting made from that plaster cast may look almost identical from a distance. Verifying provenance requires inventory numbers, transfer records and installation documentation, rather than simply comparing façades.

What evidence supplemented the surviving fragments?

The museum collection and the measured surveys served different purposes. Drawings recorded the structure’s dimensions and proportions, photographs showed the positions of sculptures on the façades, and a surviving cast-iron element gave craftspeople information about the casting itself and its surface texture. The heritage protection report also mentions the architect’s model of the arch from the Museum of Architecture, which was used in preparing the recreation. None of these types of evidence, taken alone, answers the question of which old figures were later installed on Kutuzovsky Prospekt.

The monument’s condition also changed between its construction and dismantling. The gateway was repaired in 1912 for the centenary of the Battle of Borodino; further repairs were carried out in the mid-1920s under the direction of architect Nikolai Vinogradov. When comparing archival material, it is important to date each image. A photograph from the 1930s records the result of almost a century of use and earlier repairs, rather than the untouched work of Bove and the foundry workers of 1834.

What was built in Victory Square in the 1960s?

The Triumphal Arch on Kutuzovsky Prospekt is a new structure built using measured surveys, drawings and a model of the earlier gateway. The 2022 report names conservation architect Vladimir Libson as the project leader, alongside team members Igor Ruben, Galina Vasilyeva and Dmitry Kulchinsky. Construction took place in 1966–1968, and the arch was unveiled on 6 November 1968. The Battle of Borodino Panorama Museum stood nearby, placing the monument within a different urban ensemble associated with the history of 1812.

The load-bearing parts of the arch on Kutuzovsky Prospekt date from its construction in the 1960s. According to the survey recorded in the heritage protection report, the stylobate, pylons and attic walls are made of cast-in-situ concrete with stone cladding, the vault is reinforced concrete, and the foundations rest on piles. Plaster rosettes are set into the vault’s coffers. Only one of the twelve old cast-iron columns survived the war; its components served as patterns for twelve new columns cast at the Stankolit works. Neither the present supporting structure nor the entire row of columns can therefore be regarded as the dismantled gateway transported from Tverskaya Zastava.

The stone also changed when the arch was recreated. The historical section of the 2022 report states that the former white-stone cladding was replaced with greyish Crimean limestone and granite. The survey of the same monument describes limestone blocks on the pylons and attic, and granite on the stylobate. Much of the worn cladding was subsequently replaced again during the 2012 restoration. A stone block visible on the arch may therefore be younger than both Bove’s gateway and the concrete structure of the 1960s; a similarity in colour to an archival photograph does not establish its provenance.

The guardhouses and connecting railings were not recreated in Victory Square. The arch became a freestanding monument on a new site. The texts on the commemorative plaques were also changed: according to the heritage protection report, part of the 1829 foundation inscription was placed on the side facing Mozhayskoye Highway, while lines from Kutuzov’s order of 21 December 1812 were placed on the side facing the city. Saying that ‘the arch was moved’ obscures the construction of a new structure and the reworking of the original ensemble.

How did restorers combine old figures with new decoration?

The recreation of the Triumphal Arch in the 1960s combined the manufacture of new elements with work on surviving cast iron. The 2022 report states that in 1962 the Museum of Architecture undertook the conservation and restoration of the surviving old sculptures. Its historical section refers to new castings, while the section on the monument’s present condition describes the installation of restored originals. An independent account of the 2012 museum exhibition distinguishes between these operations: the correspondent writes that some sculptures were cast anew, while others were brought back from museum storage.

The new structure was built using measured drawings and sketches made before the dismantling in 1936, together with a model of the gateway from the Museum of Architecture. The report attributes the design to Workshop No. 7 of the Mosproekt-3 Institute, under Libson’s direction. These materials made it possible to establish the overall geometry, the positions of the reliefs and the dimensions of the architectural elements. They do not certify the age of each object: the same drawing could have been used both to install a restored figure and to recreate a lost element.

The historical account in the 2022 report attributes more than 150 new sculptural pieces to the Mytishchi works. However, the document provides no accompanying list: it is unclear whether repeated castings of the same ornament and large figures were counted separately. Any assessment of the scale of the work therefore remains approximate. Without an itemised list, the proportion of surviving nineteenth-century cast iron cannot be calculated simply by subtracting this figure from the total number of visible elements on the monument.

Another precisely documented example of casting is the twelve columns made at the Stankolit works, using components of the sole surviving old column as patterns. Here, the heritage protection report links the original pattern, the new work and the number of pieces in a single account. No such chain is provided for the other decorative elements in the published text. Readers should distinguish between a pattern and the object made from it: even if a figure reproduces the dimensions and outlines of a nineteenth-century sculpture, it is physically a new casting unless continuity of the metal itself can be demonstrated.

The difference between a construction account and an attribution is apparent in the case of the large statues. The report details the materials used for the concrete pylons and how the new columns were cast, but does not trace the provenance of each figure on the façade through inventory numbers. In its section on the monument’s present condition, it identifies the restored chariot, warriors and allegorical figures as originals. This is significant evidence about the monument’s constituent parts, but listing these groups does not establish exactly which individual piece occupies each repeated niche or each section of the frieze.

Bové’s gateway stood at Tverskaya Zastava alongside guardhouses; when reconstructed, the arch was erected as a freestanding structure on Kutuzovsky Prospekt near the panorama museum. The heritage protection report notes this as a difference between the replica and the original structure. The word ‘relocated’ is therefore appropriate only as shorthand for a change in the location of the commemorative design. It does not literally describe the construction work: the concrete sections and columns were made in the 20th century, while the sculptures proved to be a mixture of originals and replicas requiring separate investigation.

Why do the documents disagree about the authenticity of the sculptures?

In the historical overview in the 2022 report it is explicitly stated that the 19th-century statues and reliefs stored at Donskoy Monastery were not used in building the new arch, and that more than 150 sculptures were cast anew at the Mytishchi factory. A few pages later, in the section on its present condition, the same report states the opposite: following restoration, original cast-iron elements were installed on the reconstructed monument, including the chariot, warriors and allegorical female figures. These two statements cannot both be accepted as an exhaustive inventory of the decoration installed.

The later section of the report on the monument’s present condition describes the arch’s structure, finishes and damage in greater detail, but does not explain the basis for identifying the named sculptural groups as originals. It provides no inventory numbers, details of foundry marks or records of transfer from the museum. The historical overview in the same document states the opposite just as unequivocally. The official status of the expert assessment does not in itself resolve the dispute: before making a definitive attribution, the information about the surviving objects and their installation must be checked.

The list of protected features serves a different purpose. It names the chariot, warriors, female allegories, high reliefs, coats of arms, friezes and rosettes, and specifies their positions within the monument’s composition, taking account of the 1966–1968 reconstruction. This is a detailed description of what must be preserved on Pobedy Square, rather than a list of objects produced by a single foundry or in a single year. The protected features include both the 20th-century reinforced-concrete structure and the appearance derived from Bové’s design. Referring to an element’s protected status therefore says nothing in itself about when it was cast.

Any explanation for the discrepancy can only be presented as an editorial inference drawn from the sources. Authors of short summaries often use the word ‘sculpture’ to refer to the entire ensemble, although it includes separate groups, reliefs, friezes and smaller decorative elements. Moreover, the claim that new castings were made and the claim that old objects were returned are logically compatible if they refer to different elements; yet the report’s first statement specifically says that no original components were used at all. The document does not explain how such a stark contradiction arose. A plausible account of its editing history must not be presented as established fact.

What can the report from the museum exhibition help verify?

The Kommersant article is dated 6 September 2012 and carries Maria Semendyaeva’s byline. It is useful as a record of a specific exhibition: the journalist described Bové’s drawings, lithographs, photographs of the dismantling, and individual cast-iron coats of arms and reliefs. Her account of the quadriga and four warriors does not repeat the contradictory 2022 report, since it predates it. However, the journalist gives no inventory numbers or transfer records, so the article strengthens the case that some originals were returned without settling the question of exactly which sculptures are present on the façade.

The museum’s announcement of the 2012 exhibition, published on an architecture portal, lists the original high reliefs ‘The Expulsion of the Gauls’ and ‘Moscow Liberated’ among the objects displayed at the museum. Here it is particularly important to distinguish the title of a subject from the physical object: the same composition could have been represented by an old casting in the collection and a replica on the new arch. This similarity does not prove that both publications refer to the same object. The dimensions, material, evidence of repairs and collection records for each relief are needed.

Comparing the three accounts examined yields a limited but clear conclusion. The historical section of the 2022 report categorically denies that original statues were installed; the technical description in the same report and the account of the museum exhibition indicate that old figures were returned. None of these texts fully explains the distribution of originals and replicas across the façades. It is therefore reasonable to describe the monument as containing a mixture of both and to acknowledge the contradiction in the documents, but the origin of each component cannot be determined from its appearance, the total number of castings or a single heading in a museum collection.

The purpose of the 2022 document also matters. It is an expert assessment report on project documentation for conserving the existing monument, rather than a published catalogue of every 19th- and 20th-century casting. It contains a historical overview, a list of protected features, a description of the monument’s condition and proposed restoration measures. When the overview and the technical section disagree in their assessment of individual elements, the document’s official status does not resolve the contradiction or replace an investigation into the metal’s provenance.

What can we confidently conclude about what survives?

Measured surveys, drawings, photographs from 1936 and individual original components of Bové’s gateway survive, including examples in museum collections. On Pobedy Square, the load-bearing structures and columns are new additions dating from the 1960s. These facts are confirmed independently of the dispute over the origins of the sculptures on the present arch.

The evidence supports a firmer conclusion for the large statues than for the smaller decorative elements. The 2012 article reports the return of the chariot and four warriors; the later section of the 2022 report likewise states that the original chariot and warriors were installed, adding the allegorical female figures. The report’s historical overview contradicts this. On the balance of the available evidence, some 19th-century sculptures were returned to the new arch, but the published texts do not allow the locations of all the old and new castings to be established individually. Particular caution is needed when discussing repeated reliefs and ornament, where a replica could stand alongside an original.

The chariot presents another potential pitfall. It crowns the composition and thus becomes its visual symbol; the Kommersant journalist described its return from museum storage, while the later section of the report identified it as an original. Yet its elevated position, the uniform dark colour of the cast iron and subsequent restoration coatings prevent an observer from determining the age of the metal from a photograph. The answer requires records of the movement and treatment of the sculptural group itself; its striking silhouette is not enough.

What did the 2012 restoration add to the arch’s history?

The 2012 restoration involved a monument that had already stood on Kutuzovsky Prospekt for several decades. The 2022 heritage protection report states that most of the deteriorated stone cladding was replaced, the sculptural groups and stone walls were cleaned, and the chariot with the figure of Victory was removed for treatment and then returned. This places a practical limit on dating from photographs: the visible surface may be more recent than the 1968 structure, while the cleaned metal does not reveal the age of the casting beneath its coating.

The survey included in the 2022 report records evidence of subsequent interventions far more precisely than the general word ‘restoration’. Specialists found metal plates on the underside of the chariot: these had been used in 2012 to reinforce a crack running through its floor. By the time of the survey, they were already affected by rust. The report also describes damaged paintwork on the columns, corrosion of the welds between the cast-iron rings and later filler repairs to casting defects. When dating an old figure, this provides a useful repair history, but neither a plate nor a coat of paint proves the date of the original casting.

The 2022 heritage protection report records material defects not directly related to the chariot. The survey identifies cracks in the granite blocks of the stylobate, damage to the limestone on the pylons, paint loss on the cast iron and isolated losses on the warrior figures. The plaster rosettes in the vault had been installed in recesses with metal reinforcement; corrosion products from this reinforcement were damaging the mortar around the edges of some casts. Taken together, these findings show that even on a single façade, restorers were dealing with metal, stone, plaster and concrete of different dates. The condition of these components requires separate assessment.

The restoration work should not be described without qualification as ‘a return to 1834’. In 2012, specialists were working on a monument dating from 1968, in which old cast-iron components could coexist with new castings, as well as new concrete, stone and plaster. Their task was to preserve the existing arch and its artistic appearance. An additional coat of paint or a replacement block does not negate the monument’s historical value, but it changes the literal meaning of the claim that ‘everything survives from Bové’s original’.

What exactly is protected on the present arch?

The monument’s protected status safeguards it on Pobedy Square, including its silhouette, proportions, architectural features and sculptural decoration. The list of protected features names the columns, warrior figures, female allegories, high reliefs, friezes, rosettes, memorial plaques and the structure’s position within the urban composition. The document repeatedly specifies that these characteristics are considered with account taken of the 1966–1968 reconstruction. This legal and conservation assessment is not a certificate of provenance for each cast-iron component; it describes the value of the existing monument as a whole.

The heritage protection report lists three decisions concerning the present arch. In 2009, the structure was added to the list of cultural heritage sites of regional significance; in 2011, the boundaries of its site were approved; and in 2015, its protected features were defined. The date ‘1834’ in its official name refers to Bové’s original gateway; the list itself repeatedly qualifies its descriptions by referring to the 1966–1968 reconstruction. The protection document thus distinguishes the historic design from the date when the present structure was built.

The 2015 list of protected features, reproduced in the report, safeguards the arch’s position on Pobedy Square. The document recognises the 1966–1968 reconstruction and preserves its silhouette and composition. The monument’s protected status does not establish the age of each casting.

Which documents could resolve the dispute over individual sculptures?

A definitive attribution requires objects to be matched by their inventory numbers and the work carried out on them. First, a museum inventory should show which figures and reliefs were received after the 1936 dismantling and what remained in storage after the work of the 1960s. Restoration records would then establish which of these objects were transferred to a restoration workshop, which defects were repaired and in what condition they were returned. Finally, assembly drawings and installation records must link each specific object to its position on the façade.

Production records would answer a related question: which components were cast anew in the 1960s. The heritage protection report mentions more than 150 new sculptures from the Mytishchi factory and, separately, twelve columns from Stankolit. Verifying these figures against the monument’s actual components would require factory records, model numbers, component names, the number of repeated elements and installation records. Without such cross-checking, the number of new objects cannot simply be subtracted from the total number of figures to establish how many originals there are: the categories in the brief historical overview are not defined precisely enough.

Photographs also require careful interpretation. Images from 1936 can reveal the positions of the original reliefs and the condition of the decoration at the time of dismantling. Photographs of restoration workshops in the 1960s may show evidence of work on old metal and markings on components. Images taken after installation can show the placement of elements within the new composition. Yet a similar relief appearing in two photographs does not in itself prove that they show the same physical object: its form could have been reproduced from a model.

How should we view the arch in light of this analysis?

The structure on Kutuzovsky Prospekt is a reconstruction of Bové’s gateway: the side wings are absent, the columns were cast anew, and the load-bearing elements are made of concrete. The 2012 museum exhibition displayed original fragments of the dismantled arch, including cast-iron coats of arms and narrative reliefs. Comparing these two sets of objects through images and catalogues is useful, but similarity of subject matter does not in itself prove that the metal is the same. The provenance of a particular figure is established through inventory and installation records, rather than by how faithfully its silhouette has been reproduced.

You can see the present arch on Pobedy Square on the ‘Poklon City’ tour: the advertised itinerary links Poklonnaya Hill, the Triumphal Arch, the Battle of Borodino Panorama Museum and Moscow City.

Sources

1. State Historical and Cultural Expert Assessment Report on the Triumphal Arch (2022)
2. S. M. Tsaryova. ‘Sculptural Decoration in Moscow Architecture from the Late 18th to the First Half of the 19th Century’ (dissertation, 2018)
3. M. Semendyaeva. ‘Victory Dismantled’, Kommersant, 6 September 2012
4. Union of Small Towns of Russia. Historical Overview of Aleksin
5. Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts. Exhibition of Cast-Iron Stove Fittings
6. ‘The Batashevs. Moscow Heritage’. Chapter on the Triumphal Arch, 2022
7. Announcement of the Museum of Architecture’s exhibition ‘The Triumph of the Arch’ (2012)
8. ‘Poklon City’ — Radius Tour Bureau’s tour page