5: The Marble Drawing Room

The drawing-room in the apartments of Countess Maria Nesselrode is beautifully adorned with polychrome painting (by Giovanni and Pietro Scotti). On the whole Rossi’s original architectural décor from the 1820s has survived here. Compositions depicting dancers, garlands and bouquets of flowers stand out against the light-coloured artificial marble walls. The display in the room reproduces the setting of a salon or a boudoir, the domain of a lady in a tunic dress. Sophia Apraxina is depicted dressed in just such a garment in the portrait by Henri François Riesener. The dressing table with a moving “psyché” mirror (Martin Guillaume Biennais to the design of Charles Percier, Paris, 1817) was made as a wedding present for the wife of Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich. On the table we can see a silver toilet set (Paris, 1809–19). Also displayed in the room are pieces of a furniture set “with swans” (France(?), early 19th century) — the swan motif was first used by Charles Percier and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine in the decoration of furniture for the palace of Saint Cloud.