Gold Drawing Room of the Winter Palace

The Gold Drawing Room of the Winter Palace, St Petersburg was one of the rooms of the palace reconstructed following the fire of 1837 by the architect Alexander Briullov. The vaulted ceiling and window embrasures give this large room a cavernous air.

Following her marriage in 1841, it became the most formal of the rooms comprising the suite of Tsaritsa Maria Alexandrovna. It was refurbished for her by Andrei Stakenschneider, who employed heavy gilt mouldings for the ceiling and walls in a Byzantine style. The room contains a fireplace of marble and jasper with a mosaic by Etienne Moderni Today, as part of the State Hermitage Museum, this room retains its original decoration.