The Passage Room

This small interior links the Bedroom and the Drawing Room.

An important role in the decor of this interior is attached to painting. On the south wall are two Dutch landscapes: Landscape with a Herd by an unknown painter of the seventeenth century from the circle of Aelbert Cuyp and Landscape with a Herd near a Lake, a signed work by Dirck van der Lisse, who was active in The Hague. In the corner near the window is one of the best paintings of Peter the Great's collection - Boy with a Brazier by the German painter Johann Conrad Seekatz, Goethe's friend, Rembrandt's follower, an admirer of Dutch realist painting.

The Drawing Room

The Drawing Room, a light corner interior with five windows, is located at the junction of the south and west enfilades of the palace. Its walls are pasted over with pearl-coloured wallpaper printed with a "grass" pattern. The tile stove of the Drawing Room is remarkable for its original design - unlike other stoves in the palace, it has no columns and predominant motifs on its tiles are architectural landscapes with the figures of people, birds and animals personifying various virtues.

The furnishings of the room demonstrate the owner's predilection for elegance and comfort. The armchairs with soft seats and backs made by Russian and French cabinet-makers create an atmosphere of repose. The two-door wardrobe lavishly decorated with carved and inlaid ornaments of maple, pear and plane, a seventeenth-century South German work, gladdens the eye. An interesting example of palatial interior decoration is a clock standing in the south-west corner of the room. The clock, with its movement, weights and pendulum in a wooden case, was made by the eminent Amsterdam master Willem Coster in the 1730s. The clock marks, in addition to hours and minutes, dates, months, week-days and moon phases.

The Drawing Room was a comfortable place not only to enjoy the rarities and meet guests, but to drink a cup of tea or coffee too. Peter the Great developed a taste for coffee during his visit to Holland. Catherine the Great also liked coffee - she preferred a very strong one, but it did not prove harmful for her health. Displayed on the table is an eighteenth-century porcelain service for one person, solitaire, decorated with a polychrome flower painting.

On the walls are The Holy Family on the Way to Egypt, a signed work by the Flemish painter Pieter van Bloemen, Landscape with a Herd, a painting by the Dutch artist Pieter Symonsz Potter, and a canvas by an unknown seventeenth-century Flemish painter, The Antique Room.