Depicted on the silk are mountains with fanciful trees, blooming bushes, flying birds, the figures of heavenly denizens, plants and objects full of beneficent symbols that Europeans perceived as something fascinatingly exotic. 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 appearance of such wall-coverings in European palaces was a tribute to the fashion born of extensive links between Europe and China. In Russia interiors decorated with hand-painted silk first appeared in the reign of Peter the Great. It is supposed that this silk adorned Peter's summer apartments in the Summer Gardens, then the interiors of the Yekaterinhof Palace from where it entered the Hermitage Museum in 1951.