Neva Enfilade of the Winter Palace
The Neva Enfilade of the
Originally designed as a series of five state rooms by the architect
History
The palace was originally built in 1732, as an official residence for the Tsaritsa
During the reign of Anna's successor, Elizabeth, Rastrelli, still working to his original plan, devised an entirely new scheme in 1753, on a colossal scale—the present Baroque Winter Palace (externally the palace seen today); the Tsaritsa wanted the palace to exceed in beauty and size all other European royal palaces.[1] The expedited completion of the palace became a matter of national honour to the Empress, and to pay for it taxes were increased on salt and alcohol to fund the extra costs, although the Russian people were already burdened by taxes to pay for Russia's wars. The final cost was 2,500,000 rubles.[2] By 1759, shortly before Elizabeth's death, an imperial palace truly worthy of the name was nearing completion; at that time, the Neva enfilade contained five principal state rooms. Work continued during the short reign of Elizabeth's nephew Peter III and on into the reign of Peter's widow Catherine the Great.
During Catherine the Great's reign, Neoclassicism came into vogue, and the new Tsaritsa was a great admirer. Rastrelli was dismissed and new architects working in the new fashions were employed. During this period, the original ornate rococo decoration of the palace was replaced with the more simple and stark neoclassicism which is a hallmark of the palace today. The Neva enfilade was completely redesigned between 1790 and 1793 by the architect Giacomo Quarenghi. Taking in the floor above, he transformed the original five rooms into three vast halls: the Concert Hall, the Great Hall and the Great Ante-Room. They were decorated in classical style with faux marbre and columns supporting life size statues.[1]
Following a disastrous fire which destroyed most of the Winter Palace's interiors in 1837, the halls were recreated in similar style by the architect Vasily Stasov.[1]
Court use of the enfilade
Until 1905, during the winter months, the Tsar and Tsaritsa were traditionally resident in the palace; this was the period of the Saint Petersburg
Before 1917, during ceremonies and functions, access to the various hall of the enfilade was dictated by rank. Those who were most important were positioned closest to the beginning of an imperial procession in the Concert Hall, the lesser exalted in the Nicholas Hall and the least important in the Great Ante-Room.
Further classification was given to the women's ranks by indication of whether they were "Dames a Portrait" or "Demoiselles d'Honneur." The former, higher ranking class wore the Tsaritsa's portrait mounted in diamonds on their left breast, while the latter wore the Tsaritsa's monogram surrounded by diamonds. In between these two ranks were the "Dames du Palais" who like the "Dames a portrait" wore olive green, the lower ranking "Demoiselles d'Honneur" wore red.[3]
While red and green were the colours of the Tsar and Tsaritsa, further colour was added by the women attached to the numerous Grand Duchesses. Each Grand Duchess had her own colour, and all the ladies attached to the suite would wear it. Queen Victoria's foreign secretary, writing to her in 1894 of a state procession through the enfilade, recorded of the Grand Duchesses' colours that one "is a particularly hideous shade of orange." The Foreign Secretary then went on to describe the "8,000 to 10,000" people present in the Winter palace's "interminable halls", and a particular "Demoiselle d'Honneur" who was "so old that she was propped up against a wall." Overall, the splendour and size of the Winter Palace and its colourful and bejewelled ladies failed to impress the Foreign Secretary for he reported to the Queen that the Grand Church "was not very large" and that the assembled imperial court had "an absence of beauty as compared with that seen at one of Your Majesty's drawing rooms." He did, however, concede that the Queen's granddaughter looked "simply magnificent...the perfection of what one would imagine an Empress of Russia on her way to the altar would be."[4][a] That wedding of Queen Victoria's granddaughter to the Tsar was to be one of the final huge gatherings at the palace, however. The palace's state rooms had had their swan song during the reign of Alexander II between 1855 and 1881.
Alexander II was the last Tsar to use the Winter Palace extensively not only for governing the empire but also entertaining. Of special note were the Bals des Palmiers given at the palace. On these occasions, 100 palm trees were brought from the hot houses at Tsarskoe Selo; these would be scattered throughout the enfilade, and around them supper tables seating 15 people would be constructed. During the course of the evening the Tsar would make the rounds of the tables, eating a piece of bread or fruit at each, in order that the guests may say that they had dined with the Tsar.[5]
Following the assassination of Alexander II, the Winter Palace was never truly inhabited again. The new Tsar
The final imperial reception at the Winter Palace was a themed, fancy dress ball celebrating the reign of
The Concert Hall
The Concert Hall has an
So it was, that from this vast double height hall that solemn imperial processions began. On such occasions the Concert Hall would be reserved for the highest ranking guest and members of the court.
Today, as part of the
The Nicholas Hall
The Nicholas Hall is located in the centre of the enfilade. The largest room in the palace at 1,103 m2 (11,870 sq ft), it was originally simply known as the Great Hall, and was the setting for many imperial balls and receptions. Following the death of Nicholas I in 1855, a large equestrian portrait of the late tsar was hung from the wall, and the hall was renamed the Nicholas Hall.
While in the same architectural rhythm as the preceding Concert Hall, the architecture is more severe. Here, the architrave is immediately below the ceiling. The only ornamentation is the carving of the corinthian capitals and the entablature.
Writing in 1902, the
- The Duchess of Sutherland wrote: "The stairs of the palace were guarded by , I have never in my life seen so brilliant a sight - the light, the uniforms, the enormous rooms, the crowd, the music, making a spectacle that was almost Barbaric in splendour...They seat at supper nearly four thousand people"
- While the Duchess of Marlborough recorded that dinner (she sat beside the Tsar) was protracted and comprised "soups, caviar and monster sturgeons, meat and game, pates and primeurs, ices and fruits, all mounted on gold and silver plate fashioned by Germain"
Ironically, the Duchess of Sutherland then went on to describe the hungry peasants outside the gates - "... all the want of penury of the peasants and this strange show to keep up the prestige of the aristocracy and the autocracy of one gentle, quiet little man."[13]
During
The Great Antechamber
The Great Ante-Chamber of the
Exhibition halls
Today, as part of the
References
Notes
- ^ Quoting Lord Carrington to Queen Victoria; 14 November 1894.
- ^ Sitwell writes: "These are no mere Negroes: they are Christian Abyssinians."
Citations
- ^ a b c "Timeline", The State Hermitage Museum, archived from the original on 8 February 2007, retrieved 23 September 2008
- ^ Orloff & Shvidkovsky (1996).
- ^ a b c d Sitwell, Sacheverell, "Valse des fleurs", Alexander Palace, archived from the original on 18 May 2015, retrieved 12 May 2015
- ^ a b Maylunas & Mironenko (1996), p. 110
- ^ Cowles (1971), pp. 190–192
- ^ a b Cowles (1971), p. 216
- ^ Cowles (1971), p. 221
- ^ Maylunas & Mironenko (1996), p. 226
- ^ Maylunas & Mironenko (1996), p. 227
- ^ Kurth (1995), p. 64.
- ^ Cowles (1971), p. 246
- ^ Massie (1967), p. 129
- ^ Stuart (1982), p. 97
- ^ Norman (1998), p. 283
Bibliography
- Cowles, Virginia (1971), The Romanovs, William Collins, Sons & Company, ISBN 978-0-00-211724-1
- Kurth, Peter (1995), Tsar: The Lost World of Nicholas and Alexandra, Little, Brown and Company (UK), ISBN 0-316-50787-3
- Massie, Robert K. (1967), Nicholas and Alexandra, Atheneum
- Maylunas, Andrei; Mironenko, Sergei (1996), A Lifelong Passion, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, ISBN 0-297-81520-2
- Norman, Geraldine (1998), The Hermitage: The Biography of a Great Museum, Fromm, ISBN 0-88064-190-8
- Orloff, Alexander; Shvidkovsky, Dmitri (1996), Saint Petersburg: Architecture of the Tsars, Abbeville Press
- Stuart, D. (1982), Dear Duchess: Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland (1867–1955), Victor Gollancz
Further reading
- Budberg, Moura (1969), Great Palaces (The Winter Palace. Pages 194–201), ISBN 0-600-01682-X
- Mackenzie Stuart, Amanda (2005), Consuelo and Alva, Harper Collins, ISBN 0-00-721687-4