Small Throne Room of the Winter Palace
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![](../I/m/Small_throne.jpg)
The Small Throne Room of the Winter Palace, St Petersburg, also known as the Peter the Great Memorial Hall, was created for Tsar Nicholas I in 1833, by the architect Auguste de Montferrand.[1] Following a fire in 1837, in which most of the palace was destroyed, the room was recreated exactly as it had been before by the architect Vasily Stasov.
Designed in a loose Baroque style, the throne is recessed in an apse before a reredos, supported by two Corinthian columns of jasper, which contains a large canvas dedicated to Peter I with Minerva by Jacopo Amigoni. In the room proper above dado height the walls are lined with crimson velvet embellished with double-headed eagles of silver thread, above which is a shallow vaulted ceiling.
Set in the opposing lunettes beneath the vaulting are paintings depicting the Battle of Poltava and the Battle of Lesnaya by Pietro Scotti (1768-1837) and Barnabas Medici. However, the focal point of the room is the silver-gilt throne of 1731, made in London by the Anglo-French gold-and-silver-smith Nicholas Clausen.[lower-alpha 1]
Here, during the era of the Tsars, diplomats gathered on New Years Day to offer good wishes to the Tsar.[2] Today, as part of the State Hermitage Museum, this room retains its original decoration.
References
Notes
Citations
- ↑ "The Hermitage 1833", The State Hermitage Museum, archived from the original on 6 February 2005, retrieved 29 September 2008
- ↑ Budberg (1969), p. 201
Bibliography
- Budberg, Moura (1969), Great Palaces (The Winter Palace. Pages 194–201), London: Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd, ISBN 0-600-01682-X