2: The Bedroom

The original décor of Countess Maria Nesselrode's bedroom that Carlo Rossi designed in the 1820s has not survived. The exhibition features items of decorative and applied art with ornaments and motifs that reflect the ideas of the era. Glassware, porcelain and tapestries present battle-scenes, views of captured cities, celebrated historical figures. The theme of heroism, characteristic of the period, is expressed in TheBattle of Marengo executed on a porcelain plaque by the famous French battle-painter Jean-François-José Swebach as well as in the Minin and Pozharsky (Russian heroes of the 17th-century "Time of Troubles") mantel clock from the workshop of bronze artist Pierre Philippe Thomire. The appearance of Egyptian motifs in works of decorative and applied art is a consequence of Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. On display in this room are items from the celebrated Egyptian Service that Napoleon presented to Alexander I.