The Dressing Room of Paul I

This dressing room of a beautiful oval shape with a spherical ceiling decorated with stucco rosettes in the form of acanthus leaves was designed by Charles Cameron in the 1780s. Decorative stucco ornaments and elegant grisaille painting with picturesque garlands of jasmine were completed in 1790 as per the project of Vincenzo Brenna. The complex volume of the room formed by a combination of the surfaces of a prism, cylinders, and a sphere, is uncommonly harmonious and proportional, making a strong artistic impression on its own. The stucco and painting decor is organically integrated into the ensemble of the interior. In the original inventories, where the room was called a “toilet”, numerous items of its furniture are listed: bureaus, tables, various vases, candlesticks, a table with a marble top, a bell, scissors, and an inkwell. In front of the window in the niche, there was a marble statue depicting a faun, one of those brought from Italy in 1783. It was lost in the fire of 1803. Now, as originally planned, there is an antique statue Faun with a Panther (the 2nd century CE, from the collection of John Lyde Browne) before the window. In front of it, there is a table veneered with palm wood and decorated with bronze ornaments made by the famous German furniture maker David Roentgen in 1784. The table belongs to the type of transforming furniture and can be used both as a vanity and drawing table. In 1784–1786, Empress Catherine II bought a large batch of furniture from Roentgen, some of it intended for the Pavlovsk Palace. Then this table became the part of the Dressing Room