Small Throne Room of the Winter Palace

The Small Throne Room of the Winter Palace, St Petersburg, also known as the Peter the Great Memorial Hall, was created for Tsar Nicholas I in 1833, by the architect Auguste de Montferrand.

Designed in a loose Baroque style, the room holds the throne recessed in an apse before a reredos, supported by two Corinthian columns of jasper, which contains a large canvas dedicated to Peter I with Minerva by Jacopo Amigoni.

In the room proper above dado height the walls are lined with crimson velvet embellished with double-headed eagles of silver thread, above which is a shallow vaulted ceiling.

The hall, covered by a cross vault, has a grandiose semi-circular niche (exedra), decorated as a triumphal arch.

On the white marble panels around the perimeter of the room are bronze gilt monograms of Peter the Great surrounded by laurel leaves.