“Servants of the Imperial Court”

During the reign of Catherine the Great and for a century and a half to come, the Russian imperial court shone brightly as one of the most magnificent in Europe. Making a sizable contribution to this illustrious imagery were the court’s livery servants.

Household staff numbers at the Russian court grew dramatically and continuously throughout the 18th Century – first half of the 19th Century. It wasn’t until the reign of Alexander II that these numbers began to steadily decline, prompted both by the general reformist course of the government and the limited financial resources of the treasury, as well as by technological progress.

Right up until the mid-19th Century, the pool of household staff serving the Court was filled by people from the “palace-servant class” that had appeared thanks to the efforts of Ekaterina II and enjoyed special rights and privileges, chief among which was exemption from personal tributes and servitude, including recruitment. Alexander II introduced the hiring of Court staff based on voluntary application, and the privileges of Court servants and their children were finally abolished by Nikolai II.

In general, starting at age 16, any subject of the Russian Empire of the Christian faith whose trustworthiness had been vetted by the palace police was eligible to join the Court service. Traditionally, the absolute majority of palace servants were men. Preferred in the hiring of staff were the children of the palace-servant class and those who had served a tour of duty in guard or army units. “Female” positions were available among the staff of the empresses’ private quarters, at the palace telegraph and telephone offices and laundry service, and in the palace kitchens. Certain positions such as headwaiter or “Moor of the Imperial Court,” for example, could be filled by the subjects of foreign states, for whom special hiring rules were established. The primary responsibility of Court servants was to diligently tend to the day-to-day needs of the imperial family and their distinguished guests and treat palace property with exceptional care.

All palace servants were obliged to wear formal attire. The term “livery” derives from the French word livree, which translates “clothes issued by the state and nobility for their entourage and attendants.” Palace livery in the European sense of the word first appeared in Russia under Peter I and became permanently entrenched during the reign of Ekaterina II. But it wasn’t until her death in 1796 that the main livery colors were finally approved (green, red, gold) and a description of the standard attire of the main types of palace servants was established. Sweeping reforms of military and civilian uniforms and livery costumes were conducted during the reign of Emperor Alexander II. The thoroughly-revamped livery attire was officially adopted in 1857 and went largely unchanged until 1917.

Servants were issued several types of uniforms: everyday, Sunday-best, parade, mourning, off-duty (street wear for leaving the grounds of the palace residence), travel and work.

Beginning with the reign of Alexander III, the exclusive right to tailor the livery for Court servants was held by the I.P. Lidval firm, which shipped livery costumes from its ateliers to the Livery Storeroom of the Winter Palace, occupying a sizeable area of the residence. In the late-19th – early-20th Centuries, more than 20,000 pieces of clothes, shoes and accessories were kept in the storeroom.

The Livery Storeroom was ransacked during the October Revolution of 1917 and later turned into a Storeroom for Livery Wear from which clothing and accessories were given to educational institutions, clubs and people’s theaters. Up until 1934, the Storeroom was controlled by the Historical Household Department (HHD) of the Russian Museum, after which the livery costumes were transferred to the Museum of the Revolution, then to the Ethnographical Museum of the Peoples of the USSR. It wasn’t until 1941(and only really until 1946) that the livery, among other exhibits, made its way to the newly-established Department of Russian Cultural History.

The critical component of the exhibition is its “personal” touch. Thanks to several surviving accompanying letters and the recently-discovered inscriptions on some livery costumes, we now know the names of many of their owners.

Aside from exhibits from the Hermitage collection, the exhibition showcases unique documents and photographs from the Russian State Historical Archive, the Central State Archive of Cinematic, Photographic and Phonographic Documents in St. Petersburg and a trove of personal archives of palace-servant descendants from St. Petersburg and Stavropol.

The costumes were prepared for the exhibition by art-restorers at the Fabric Scientific-Restoration Laboratory of the Scientific Restoration and Conservation Department at the State Hermitage: M.V. Denisova (Laboratory Head), T.V. Grunina-Shkvarok, L.N. Loginova, N.Y. Lyakina, N.S. Pinyagina, A.A. Ryadova, E.P. Taravkova, M.N. Tikhonova, G.G. Fedorova and A.A. Shapran.  

Exhibition curator – Nina Ivanovna Tarasova, Head of the Sector for the Applied Arts of the Department of Russian Cultural History and the State Hermitage, Candidate of Historical Sciences.

The exhibition is accompanied by the publishing of a richly-illustrated research catalog (State Hermitage Publishing House, 2014) with a foreword by the General Director of the State Hermitage, M.B. Piotrovsky. The catalog sets the stage for monographic research by N.I. Tarasova focusing on the servants of the Imperial Court in the late-19th – early-20th Centuries. The publication also includes the biographies of selected palace servants, three appendices, and an abbreviated glossary of textile and costume terminology.