3: Exhibition Hall

The display in this room is devoted to the restoration of the Winter Palace after the devastating fire of 1837. One of the chests contains examples of the products from the works that took part in the competition to earn the right to supply the restoration process. In a second one can see nameplates for the attic spaces. There is an interesting gilded copper plaque that was set up in the Dark Corridor to mark the beginning of the restoration of the living apartments. Here too is a late-18th- or early-19th-century hammer found in the attic above the Moorish Dining-Room that was used to produce containers for a fire-extinguishing system. Large photographs show examples of makers’ marks on iron elements found on the attic beams and staircases in the Winter Palace. They still have to be interpreted.