The Chinese Parasol

At this viewpoint once stood a Chinese sunshade umbrella, a sign of the Chinese fashion.

Chinese sunshades (parasol) very quite widespread in English landscape gardens in the late 18th century. They brought together a desire for panoramic views with a longing for distant cultures. In garden culture, walks do not just provide you with physical exercise, but they allow your thoughts to travel. With the French Revolution, the Chimese parasols became a thing of an antiquated past, a symbol of the dying aristocratic culture. For this reasons the parasol in the Ermitage  was destroyed by French revolutionaries in 1793.