page_title: Private Apartments of the Winter Palace
section_title: Empire (2) and Silver (3) Drawing Rooms
hierarchical_section_title: Private Apartments of the Winter Palace / Apartments of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna (2–10) / Empire (2) and Silver (3) Drawing Rooms
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Санкт-Петербург. Зимний дворец. English: Saint Petersburg (Russia), Winter Palace.
context_page_description: The Private Apartments of the Winter Palace are sited on the piano nobile of the western wing of the former imperial palace, the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. Access to the private rooms, for members of the Imperial Family, from the exterior was usually through the Saltykov Entrance which was reserved for use by only the Tsar, Tsaritsa and grand dukes and grand duchesses. A second access was through a discrete box-like porch, on the western end of the Palace's Neva façade. From the ground floor, it can be accessed from the October Staircase, formerly known as His Majesty's Own Staircase; this double-flighted imperial staircase was a secondary entrance to the private apartments, and provided a more convenient route to the palace's ground floor and private entrances than the more formal and ceremonial public route through the state apartments. During the October Revolution of 1917, this was the entrance by which the revolutionaries gained access to the palace in order to arrest the Provisional Government in the small private dining room. Since that date it has been known as the October Staircase and has a plaque commemorating the event.
context_section_description: The Silver and Empire Drawing Rooms were part of the suite of rooms reserved for the private use of the Tsaritsa. They form an enfilade which culminates in the Malachite Drawing Room, which served as the Tsaritsa's State Drawing Room, where she gave audiences and conducted her official business. It was also in the Malachite Drawing Room that Romanov brides were traditionally robed before walking in procession through the state rooms to the Palace's Grand Church for their weddings.
  Originally part of the suite of Maria Feodorovna, these two drawing rooms were redesigned for Nicholas II and his wife in a French style, the Silver Drawing Room in a 19th-century interpretation of the Louis XVI style and the Empire Drawing Room in a faux Napoleonic empire style. From these rooms, the Tsaritsa was able to withdraw to still more private apartments, her boudoir, dressing room and bedroom.
caption: A 19th-century view of the private wing showing projecting, canopied balconies; these along with the wall surrounding the private garden have now been removed.
exif: {"Image Tag 0x000B": "digiKam-1.0.0-beta6", "Image ImageWidth": "1032", "Image ImageLength": "1096", "Image BitsPerSample": "12", "Image Compression": "Pentax PEF Compressed", "Image DocumentName": "imgp7633.pef", "Image Make": "PENTAX Corporation", "Image Model": "PENTAX K10D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "1", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "K10D Ver 1.10", "Image DateTime": "2009:11:07 16:57:54", "Image ExifOffset": "352", "Thumbnail ImageWidth": "160", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "120", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "29710", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3651", "EXIF ExposureTime": "5", "EXIF FNumber": "9", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:11:07 16:57:54", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:11:07 16:57:54", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "50", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1032", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1096", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "75", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "2"}