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The Main Vestibule was the first room that visitors to the Governor of St Petersburg's palace would enter. It ran the full width of the building: the door on the other side led to a garden with hothouses, fountains and Italian sculpture. Tuscan columns divide the space into three parts and support a vaulted ceiling that is decorated with ornamental stuccowork. The walls were painted with tempera in imitation of marble and this effect was recreated during the restoration of 1980-81. Special niches contain Roman statues. Opposite the main entrance to the palace and in front of the door to the garden is a bronze bust of Alexander Menshikov made by the Italian sculptor Bartolomeo Carlo Rastrelli. The vestibule also contains two early 18th-century European sculptures - Venus in a Sea-Shell and Diana with Cupid and a Dog from Peter the Great's collection. |
