The painted silk wall-coverings were created using natural vegetable and mineral paints. These silks originally adorned the Summer Palace of Peter I in the Summer Gardens. In 1748, Empress Elizabeth ordered to transfer them to the Yekaterinhof Palace. Later they entered the Hermitage Museum, where restorers painstakingly restored them. The wall-coverings were created by Chinese craftsmen artists in the late 17th - early 18th century in the finest traditions of Chinese painting for the European market. The subjects seen in the Reception Room were drawn from a celebrated early-14th-century play by Wang Shih-fu, The Romance of the Western Chamber, that tells of the love and adventures of a student and a beauty.