音频游览 The hall “Lady’s sitting room” or «Tête-à-tête»

The interior presents an improvised sitting room of the nineteenth century which combines the art styles changing each other during the whole century. Elegant furniture creates a cozy atmosphere of the living room.  Thanks to the fashion for tabletop games extended in Europe at the end of the eighteenth century, so called card-tables appear in daily life.  The museum object is interesting by its construction – its fifth gate leg allows opening the tabletop for card games, chess, draughts and chuck-a-luck and the lower case served for their storage. The restored collection of fans which you can see in the mirror cases dated as of eighteenth – beginning of the twentieth century made in Russia, countries of Western Europe and Asia. They are also displayed in the pullout drawers and you can examine them yourself. The exhibition of fans is complemented with ladies’ accessories which were an essential part of beauties’ lives in the past.

The separate case presents the piece of famous “Swan dinnerware set”. It has been creating by celebrated craftsmen Johann Kendler and Johann Kirhner at the Meissen manufactory during four years.   At the moment less than three hundred items remained in the world though there used to be more than two thousand two hundred pieces.

To the right of the entrance from the hall in the small window-case, you can see a collection of Western European miniatures made with water colors on bases of ivory. The illustrated albums help to get familiar with the past epoch.