Alexander Hall of the Winter Palace

Decorated in an unusual Gothicised version of classicism, the walls contain twenty-four medallions commemorating Russia's victory over the French, created by the sculptor Count Fyodor Tolstoy.

The project was created by the architect Briullov in 1838 during the rebuilding of the palace's front interiors after the devastating fire of 1837 and was conceived as a memorial to Russia's victory in the Patriotic War of 1812.

[2] In contrast to the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace, the idea of perpetuating the memory of the war against Napoleon was resolved here in a figurative and allegorical form of artistic stylisation.

The appearance of this technique is usually explained by a constructive necessity - the support of the fan vaults - but it may also be linked with the existence of a hidden ideological programme to decorate the hall, the mysteries of fate and the secret sympathies of Emperor Alexander I.

In the northern end of the room, in the spring of 1839, instead of the window already made, a large, full-length portrait of the Emperor was proposed in the place of a massive gilded stretcher reaching to the floor, while the backspace was hung with crimson brocade drapery with two double-headed eagles embroidered on it.