This magnificent chandelier epitomizes the fashion for sumptuous and glittering furnishings made for the Russian Imperial Court during the later years of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Unlike those chandeliers produced in France and England during this period, they often featured a combination of both colored and clear crystal glass, renowned for the quality. Before the introduction of gas lighting, during the long dark nights of eighteenth and nineteenth Russia, candlelight was essential, especially in and around the outskirts of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Thus, we find that during this period countless numbers of chandeliers and other candle-lit lighting was introduced into Russia's more palatial buildings.