Pavlovsk Palace a book by Anatoli Michailovich Kuchumov website design by Bob Atchison
  Dressing Room of Paul I
The Dressing Room of Paul I, a small room, oblong in shape, with apsidal ends, is the last apartment of the northern suite. It was built to the design of Charles Cameron, and decorated with mouldings and paintings executed from the drawings of Vincenzo Brenna. The decor is exquisite in its delicacy.

Here the barrel vault and frieze are decorated with bas-relief mouldings on a lightly tinted background. The delicate shades of colour excellently suit the motifs of the painted ornament: garlands of jasmine, floral wreaths. The lunettes in the exedrae carry bas~reliefs of Bacchus and Ariadne and The Triumph of Ceres by Ivan Alexandrov, a sculptor active in the early nineteenth century.

In the window niche stands a statue: Faun and Panther, a first-second century AD Roman copy of a third-century BC Greek original. In keeping with the function of the room is the palm wood dressing and writing-table with fittings: its top can be pushed back, disclosing a mirror on a folding rack, a rising desk which can be used as a book-rest or a writing-board, and a variety of compartments for toilet requisites and writing implements; a special partition contains an inkstand and a sand-box. This table was made in the famous workshop of David Roentgen, son of Abraham Roentgen, in Neuwied on the Rhine. Roentgen, who styled himself "Englischer Kabinettmacher", was a leading German cabinetmaker of his time, highly skilled in the mechanics of furniture-making. He created a distinctive style of furniture decoration, with marquetry of coloured woods and fine ormolu and brass ornaments.

In 1784-86 large quantities of furniture in mahogany, palmwood, thuya and burr walnut were brought by David Roentgen to St Petersburg and offered for sale to Catherine II and her courtiers. Many of these pieces were installed in the Pavlovsk Palace in the early years of its existence and are still part of its decor.

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