Private rooms of the Winter Palace

[pers]

Thank you to all of you.  This thread really remains very interesting.  I am wondering whether Alix's dressingroom might not have been through the door in the back of the boudoir along with her bathroom.  The boudoir would be a "passing room" (prikhodnaya komnata) for Nicholas if he went from the bedroom direct to his study.  In the Alexander Palace for instance he would go the way of the Mauve boudoir to get to his rooms I would imagine, and not Alix's dressing room. 

Still no one with the plans of the rooms as they existed in approx. 1900?

[amy]

Just so you all know- I deleted photo number 5 from the series of Alix's boudoir because I just realized that this ceiling fragment is NOT from room 183. I think, but still need to recheck my cyrptic notes from my trip that that ceiling fragment is from the Empire or Silver Drawing Room. Oh how I wish I had taken better notes (and had a better camera when I was there!)

On the hand, the below photo IS od the ceiling in Alix's Boudoir in 2004:

[amy]

I'm slowing working way through my photos. I just completed gathering/altering/resizing the photos for Alix's Sitting Room (Exhibit Room # 185/ King's map D).

I know many of you have seen most, if not all the historic photos from this room, but since the previous pictures in this thread no longer exist and because I feel compelled to have them all in one place ...

1. Alix's Sitting Room, 1917




2. Alix's Sitting Room, 1917



3. Alix's Sitting Room, c. 1900

This photo has often been described as belonging to the Lower Palace in the Alexandria Park, but after closer examination I believe it is, in fact, Alix's Sitting Room in the Winter Palace. The identical wallpaper, design on the door, as well as the similarity in the placement and shape of the furniture (lacy basinet(?), pattern of the furniture and the shape of the legs) all led me to this conclusion. The only quirky detail is the carpet, BUT the following photo shows the corner of this room with carpet.



4. Alix's Sitting Room, c. 1900



Again, sorry about the quality from my 2004 pictures. I wish I has taken a million more pictures of each room, but I did not. Maybe someday someone will provide us with better pictures of these rooms. Until then ...

5. Alix's Sitting Room, 2004



6. Alix's Sitting Room, 2004



7. Alix's Sitting Room, 2004

[Aleksasha]

Yes Amy, you're right: the photo was taken in Alix's sitting room  The photos are woderful. Thank you for posted them!!! We all are expecting for others: silver room etc. 

[Eddie_uk]

Keep them coming Amy dear! They are fascinating! Don't the rooms look awful now?? Not at all cosey and horribily clinical. I love the way the rooms used to look!!

I wonder what happened to the paintings of Alixs' parents...

[amy]

Thanks Eddieboy and Aleksasha! I will be adding many more photos, it just takes time to organize it all.

I agree, Eddieboy, the rooms do look "horribly clinical." But, as will be come evident, not all the rooms were completely gutted. In some cases, like the Empire and Silver Drawing Rooms, the ceilings were left intact.

Pers: I meant to reply earlier. I think your observation about Nicholas passing through Alix's Boudoir in both the Winter Palace and the Alexander Palace is really interesting. I has previously mapped out in my head Nicholas's path from their bedroom to his quarters in the Alexander Palace, but I hadn't yet thought this through for the Winter Palace. Thank you!

[Eddie_uk]

I do understand Amy!  Thank you, look forward to seeing more when you are able

[gleb]

I'm sure there are more, but I only have two photos from the Winter Palace after the storming.

Caption:
Soldiers in the Ministerial Reception Room of Nicholas II after the storming of the Winter Palace, 1917.

Corresponds to King's P/ Hermitage 175 (maybe also 176). Confussing because the space has changed. During NII's time there were 2 rooms occupying the space that now has 3!

To me, this is not the Tsar's reception room, this room is part of the old app. of Maria Alexandrovna. I think it is called Marble hall, it is along the main facade of the palace.

[gleb]

Thanks so much for all your photos and for sharing them with us!

[gleb]

look at this page, to convince yoursef.

http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/08/hm88_0_1_54.html

[amy]

Good call, Gleb. I think you are correct!

The architectural details match, e.g. the door and the stucco(?) reliefs. As we are all probably aware, publication mistakes do occur and I think this is what happened. The only historic photo (with the exception of the misidentified one) I have seen of NII's Reception Room is in the huge exhibition catalog Nicholas & Alexandra - The Last Imperial Family of Tsarist Russia. I probably would have figured out that the architectural details in these two photos don't match once I began investigating that room, but I hadn't gotten there yet! Thanks for saving me the headache! I would have puzzled about it for some time.

The book I scanned it from Nicholas Alexandra - The Last Tsar and Tsarina (Lund Humphries in Association with the Hermitage Amsterdam) has the following citation on the page this photo appears (pg. 60):

CAT. NR. 80
SOLDIERS IN THE MINISTERIAL RECEPTION ROOM
OF NICHOLAS II AFTER THE STORMING OF
THE WINTER PALACE, 1917
Karl Karlovich Kubesch
(late 19th/early 20th century)
photo

Below is the corresponding citation in the Index of Objects:

          80
Karl Karlovich Kubesch (late 19th/early 20th century)
SOLDIERS IN THE MINISTERIAL RECEPTION ROOM
OF NICHOLAS II AFTER THE STORMING OF
THE WINTER PALACE, 1917
Photo
16.8 x 22.4 cm/ Pencil inscription on reverse: 'Winter Palace Ministerial
Reception Room of N II F-572' / Provenance: 1941, State Museum of
Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR/ Inv. no. ERFt-21230 / T.P.

BUT, and here's the interesting part, just below this citation is the following one for object no. 82 (which is not printed in this book):

          82
Karl Karlovich Kubesch (late 19th/early 20th century)
THE WHITE HALL. ALEXANDER KERENSKI'S GUARDS, 1917
Page from the "Winter Palace in 1917" album
Silver bromide print
17 x 23 cm/ Provenance: 1981, Archive of the State Hermitage Museum/
Inv. no. ORDF/ V.M.

[amy]

Below are some photos that illustrate Gleb's keen observation. The colored photos are screen shots from the hermitage website. The room map is from c. 1870. The door in question was not originally marked on this map. I added it to reflect how this room POSSIBLY looked in 1917. My guess is that this door either did not exist when the c. 1870 palace floor map was created or it was left out, but I could be wrong. Another real possibility is that the 1917 photo has been horizontally flipped.

1. White Hall, c. 2000
The area in question is inside the black box.




2. White Hall, c. 2000
The reason I added this photo from the opposite side of the room is because it is difficult to see the space where the door MIGHT have existed in 1917. Because of the angle of the Hotmedia image, it is easier to see the blocked-off space on the "left" side of the room.  I also added it because the 1917 to show the location in the event that it is flipped. Oy! My head!



3. White Hall Room Map, c. 1870
The arrow shows the area of the room where the photo was taken if the photo wasn't flipped. The arrow with the question mark would be the correct location if it were flipped.



4. 1917 photo horizontally flipped.

[gleb]

Good call, Gleb. I think you are correct!

 I probably would have figured out that the architectural details in these two photos don't match once I began investigating that room, but I hadn't gotten there yet! Thanks for saving me the headache! I would have puzzled about it for some time.

Happy to have been useful 

[gleb]

[gleb]