The Deer Bridge, spanning the canal that connects the Central and Middle Rose Pavilion Ponds, was constructed in Pavlovsk Park in the Parade Field area in 1879 under the supervision of engineer Chikalev. It was built on the site of an old wooden bridge called the Rose Bridge. The metal trusses for the bridge were made at the Saint-Gobain factory, and the railing was produced by the "Heirs of Foss." The bridge abutments are stone, faced with Pudost limestone. On top of them are rectangular stone pedestals, on which rest figures of reclining deer cast in Berlin by sculptors Greis and Hafiner. The deer figures were lost in the 1920s, but the bridge's name has been preserved to this day — Deer Bridge.

The statues of graceful animals — two pairs of reclining deer — were acquired for Pavlovsk by Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich in 1875. They were made based on models by the German sculptor Christian Rauch, which had been appearing in landscape parks in Germany since the 1820s. The real deer had been exterminated by the landowners through hunting, and missing these beautiful noble animals, they began ordering sculptures. The first bronze castings from Rauch’s models were installed at the entrance to Neustrelitz Park, where the residence of Duke George of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was located in 1826, and in 1842 — in the Glienicke Park in Potsdam. These deer gained widespread fame in the mid-19th century, when in 1844 the foundry firm of Moritz Geiss included models of paired sculptures in the printed catalog of their products, and in 1851 presented a plaster model at the World Exhibition in London.

Thanks to close monarchical ties, paired deer sculptures appeared in the parks of suburban grand ducal residences — in Strelna, Znamenskaya Dacha, Mikhailovskaya Dacha, and Oranienbaum. It is known that bronze sculptures were installed in Strelna, and by 1855 they were gilded. The Pavlovsk figures were made of zinc and had fallen into poor condition by the 1920s. The last mention of them dates to 1928. Presumably, the sculptures were sent for melting down.

But how to make an exact copy? Preliminary research showed that none of these sculptures had survived in any of the St. Petersburg suburbs. However, traces of the bronze deer from Strelna led to Tashkent. At the beginning of the 20th century, Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich took them there during his Turkestan exile and installed them in front of his palace. However, it turned out that only a pair of young deer had survived to the present day. Their copies, made of bronze by Uzbek sculptor Jasvant Annazarov, were gifted by Uzbekistan to Russia. Another pair of deer was made by the "Guar" firm in a foundry workshop in St. Petersburg. The model was created according to the design of sculptor Vladislav Manachinsky, taking into account historical photographs and the dimensions of the original figures preserved in Tashkent. The sculptures of young and mature deer mainly differ in the posture of the body, the branching of the antlers, and the texture of the fur.

Sources:

http://www.pavlovskmuseum.ru/news/restoration/2476/

https://www.citywalls.ru/house25750.html