Private rooms of the Winter Palace

[EmmyLee]

Thom, I can't get an image to load on that page... Is it still working?

[ThomB]

I'm not sure what's up with the link on the State Hermitage website. It didn't work yesterday morning and then later in the day it did.

Here is the title of the work itself:

Winter Palace. The Plan of the First Floor (second Floor, USA)

Pen and Indian ink and watercolour. 44x57 cm
Russia. Mid-19th century   
Provenance: mid-19th century

Maybe this will be a simpler link:
http://www.arthermitage.org/Drawings/Winter-Palace-The-Plan-of-the-First-Floor.html
(Click on it to enlarge.)

[EmmyLee]

Yes, thank you!

[Joanna]

http://www.arthermitage.org/Drawings/Winter-Palace-The-Plan-of-the-First-Floor.html
(Click on it to enlarge.)

I do not know if anyone can add numbers on the above plan but if you are able to identify the white drawing room, there is a door opening to the left of it, that room is square shaped. Beyond it was NII's bathroom. The square room has in the upper portion what appears to be a rectangle box. This is where the remnants of the elevator hoist is located with Briullov paintings, muted pink and light blue.

Joanna

[ThomB]

The white drawing room is immediately past the malachite drawing room in the Empress's apartment, is it not? (Which doesn't help much if ones doesn't happen to know where the malachite room is, I admit!)

[ThomB]

Since I linked to pre- and post- fire plans of the palace, just for comparison here is Rastrelli's original plan…
http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/05/hm5_7_7_0_6.html

[Selencia]

Has anyone been to the Winter Palace? In reading about Imperial Russia I often hear about how members of the family did not like living at the Winter Palace for various reasons; and I was just wondering if for the people who have been in there, if you got a sense that it would not be a very nice place to live.

[Robert_Hall]

Well, Selenica, I, as well as many others on this forum have, several times.
  The private apartments no longer exist as they were,  but the place is huge, uncomfortable and  cold or overheated.. There were no real outside places to  enjoy,  The other palaces out side of the city had more than enough of that. It was much like Buckingham Palace- a working office building.  Also a target.
 After Alexander II died there, from assassination,  I think the family generally avoided it other than formal occasions.

[Sanochka]

Russian tulipwood jardiniere mounted with ormolu and Sevres porcelain from the White Drawing Room of Empress Alexandra.  Recorded in inventories of this room in 1850, 1885, and again in 1889.  Photo from Christie's sale, October 21, 2005.  (This piece sold for $156,000.)

[Russian Art Lover]

Interesting that many of the tsars actually died in the Winter Palace - Alexander II after the bomb attack on the Catherine Canal, Catherine the Great on the toilet seat or in a corridor, whichever version you want to believe.

There were also many unfortunate incidents linked to the place - the bomb attack of 1880, the fire of 1837, Alexander I watching the flood of 1824 from the windows of the Winter Palace, Nicholas I holed up in the Winter Palace on the morning of the Decembrist revolt...

Incidentally, Nicholas I also died in the Winter Palace (18 February 1855). But the modest folding bed on which he died is no longer there - it was moved to the Cottage at Alexandria.

[RomanovMartyrs]

Can anyone tell me the numbers for the rooms where OTMA slept? I know Tatiana had a room on the first floor at #15, but what about bedrooms of the girls? Did they all share one (the other rooms on the ground floor in that corner are quite large), or were they separate?

Was #15 where Tatiana slept or just a kind of office?

If I was made to guess, perhaps they used #13 as a bedroom and #14 was some sort of sitting room? #12 is the Gothic hall, I doubt this was a bedroom...

Any help is appreciated!

[IvanVII]

I believe #15 is part of the apartments for the daughters of NI not NII.

[Sanochka]

Here is a stunning picture of the furniture that sold at the 2009 Bukowski auction in Finland.  Above is another picture of some it in situ, in Alexandra Feodorovna's Silver Drawing Rroom in the Winter Palace, circa 1917.

[BobG]

I believe #15 is part of the apartments for the daughters of NI not NII.

I'm having trouble finding the plans that show these room numbers.  Can anyone redirect me?
Thanx,
BobG

[Alexandre Mikhaelovitch]

To complete the Sanochka's post , other pictures of the silver drawning room's furnitures ( before restoration ) , with another sofa and a square table ( we see it in the black-and-white photo of the room ) :

The first sofa :



The second sofa :



Three chairs:



Two armchairs :



The square table :



Bukowski auction , 2009 , Finland :







Another view of the Alexandra Feodorovna's Silver Drawning Room in the Winter Palace :



Sorry for my bad english