{"id":13678,"date":"2009-07-14T19:21:46","date_gmt":"2009-07-14T17:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.amber.com.pl\/bursztynowa-komnata-w-carskich-palacach\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T20:30:01","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T19:30:01","slug":"the-amber-room-in-the-tsarist-palaces","status":"publish","type":"bursztyn","link":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/bursztyn\/bursztynowa-komnata-w-carskich-palacach\/","title":{"rendered":"Amber Chamber in the tsar's palaces"},"content":{"rendered":"

Owing to my age and long-standing collaboration with a team of Russian specialists reconstructing the interior decoration of the chamber in Tsarskoye Selo, I had the opportunity to meet Anatoly Kuchumov, the final curator of the Amber Room. He held this position from tsarist times (from 1916) until the entry of the Germans on 17 September 1941, a period of 25 years. Despite daily contact with this extraordinary work of art, not only did it lose none of its impact in his eyes, but on the contrary, it filled him with fascination and a love for the tiniest details of the grand composition. No doubt part of that fascination rubbed off on me too. In presenting this work in a text that is written concisely and, due to the scarcity of iconographic sources, sparsely illustrated, I have no chance of conveying the full charm of the Room and am necessarily compelled to operate with rather dryly presented facts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Winter
The third Winter Palace in St Petersburg on the Neva, which housed the Amber Room between 1745 and 1755<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The arrival of the gift from Berlin<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The basis of the final composition became the interior design elements of the Amber Cabinet of King Frederick I of Prussia in the so-called City Palace in Berlin (see: Amber cabinet of King Frederick I<\/a>) presented to Tsar Peter I. Their total surface area was 71.7 m2<\/sup> , accounting for 83,4% of the total length of 86.12 m2<\/sup> amber wall decoration in the future Chamber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vast majority of these elements (68.5 m\u00b2) were made in Berlin according to the design of Gda\u0144sk native Andreas Schl\u00fcter by master amber craftsmen also originating from Gda\u0144sk (Gottfried Wolfram, Gottfried Turau and Ernst Schacht). The remainder consisted of 3 earlier mirror frames (3.2 m2<\/sup> )<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon receiving the gift, the Tsar continued his journey to Paris, and therefore, after it was brought to St Petersburg, the consignment was inspected by the Tsar\u2019s companion from his youth, the current Governor-General, Prince Aleksander Menshikov. In a report dated 5 July 1717, he informed the Tsar, who was staying in Paris: \u201cI have examined the Amber Room presented to Your Majesty by the Prussian king and have decided to leave it in the crates in which it was brought. (...) There is little, or rather very little, damage in it. Some tiny pieces have fallen out, but they can be glued back on, and those that are missing can be replaced. This is truly an extraordinary work, such as I have not encountered anywhere in the world.\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the decoration of the study was not entirely completed due to the sudden cessation of work upon the death of King Frederick I. For instance, some of the pilasters for connecting the large panneaux were missing, as was the cornice enclosing the whole thing. Furthermore, neither amber nor craftsmen capable of making up the shortages were present in St Petersburg. Therefore, the contents of the crates, including eight panels as large as sails (370 x 188 cm), had to remain unexhibited in them for many years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until the end of his life, Peter I made no decision on how to use the acquired treasure. Neither Peter's wife, Catherine I, who reigned from 1725 to 1727, nor his son Peter II, who sat on the tsarist throne from 1727 to 1730, concerned themselves with it either. It was only after Peter I's daughter, Empress Elizabeth I, assumed imperial power that the first attempts were made to use the amber treasure in subsequent tsarist residences in the expanding capital on the Neva.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amber room arrangement in the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The practical use of the amber panels for the permanent arrangement of rooms began in 1743. As early as 3 January of that year, the Tsarina ordered them to be moved to the newly erected Winter Palace<\/span> (the third) by Francesco B. Rastrelli. At this point a second Italian master also appears, who for many years also accompanied the further transformations of the amber cabinet into the Amber Room: this was Aleksander Martelli, a conservator of monuments and stucco-worker, permanently working in St Petersburg for the Tsarist court. He recognised and to a large extent mastered the techniques of amber processing, the principles of assembling larger amber structures, and developed recipes for resin-wax adhesives, similar to those used by the Gda\u0144sk masters. Thanks to this, he permanently glued back fallen details and even supplemented some of the small fragments. In a contract concluded on 11 February 1743, Martelli also undertook to assemble the entire decor in the designated room of the Winter Palace. The low amount of the fee for all the work is astonishing \u2013 600 roubles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interior design project<\/span> was designed by the later creator of the Amber Room, Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli. The pilasters missing to connect the decoration \u2013 according to Schl\u00fcter's idea, made purely of amber with engravings and relief \u2013 had to be replaced by Rastrelli with mirrored ones in gilded, carved wooden frames due to a lack of craftsmen. He presented the design on this matter to Empress Elizabeth herself and obtained her handwritten signature. In practice, it turned out that none of the Russian glassworks managed to produce mirrors of good quality and in the large dimensions matching the height of the decoration (370 cm). It was not immediately possible to find a foreign manufacturer; after failed attempts in Germany and England, the order was finally fulfilled by a French company indicated by the woodcarver, the Frenchman Michel, who made the frames for them. This took place in December 1745, i.e. after almost three years since the work began in the Winter Palace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"PZ

Reconstruction of the Amber Room project in the Third Winter Palace<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Slightly earlier Elizabeth I received a magnificent gift from the King of Prussia, Frederick II, which also conditioned the completion of the interior decoration. It was fourth amber frame<\/span> envisioned in Schl\u00fcter's design, but not previously executed. The frame was prepared in secret from the sovereign, intending to give her a pleasant surprise. The K\u00f6nigsberg masters rejected the design sent from St Petersburg and executed the frame in the new Rococo style, according to Anton Reich's design. The executors were the K\u00f6nigsberg masters Johann Berngard, Friedrich Welpendorf and Jacob Sur. Unlike the three earlier frames with biblical themes, the K\u00f6nigsberg object depicted the glory and military might of Russia: beneath the imperial crown, panoplies composed of swords, halberds, muskets, cannons and powder kegs were arranged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, the Amber Room in the Winter Palace, the official residence of the rulers of Russia, served a state function. The last delegation it hosted was a group of Polish-Saxon diplomats led by Count Funk. The visit took place on 8 January 1755. A few months later (in August 1755) the room was dismantled and, by order of Empress Elizabeth, moved (literally on the backs of a company of soldiers) to Tsarskoye Selo, a distance of 25 km.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"smoke
Rococo frame to a design by Anton Reich, presented by King Frederick II<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Amber Room in Tsarskoye Selo<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Tsarskoye Selo was one of the satellite residences of the Romanov imperial family, alongside the capital Saint Petersburg. This grand palace and park ensemble began to be built shortly after the capital of the Russian Empire was moved to the Neva, with the same grand scale as the capital's buildings. Among the many features of Tsarskoye Selo (palaces, manors, a Chinese village, a Turkish bath and other exotic arrangements) Grand Peterhof Palace<\/span> it stood out in terms of scale and function.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tsarskoye
Summer Palace in Tsarskoye Selo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Elizabeth I, still dissatisfied with the designs of this palace, successively dismissed several architects until, on the threshold of the 1750s, Rastrelli took on the task. He was also the creator of the palace's interior design, including The Amber Room <\/span>located enfilade-style on the prestigious first floor, close to what was then the largest ballroom in Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The room in Tsarskoye Selo was considerably larger than the studies in Berlin and St Petersburg. In plan view, it was a square with sides of 10 metres, and the floor-to-ceiling height of 7.8 metres was equal to three modern living rooms. As is easily calculated, the total wall surface area of this room was 312 m2, and Rastrelli had amber composition elements measuring 74 m2 available for its decoration (including the fourth frame from K\u00f6nigsberg), which is a mere 23.7% of the total area. Despite this disparity, he managed to create the impression that amber dominated the interior of the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He achieved this through several decisive compositional treatments:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • on the piers of the external wall, pierced from floor to ceiling by three huge windows, he placed mirrors reflecting the amber decoration of the interior;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • he decorated fragments of the side walls along the enfilade of doors with rich, gilded woodcarving compositions;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • he separated the arrangement of eight large panels in the central zone of the walls with doubled mirror pilasters;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • above the amber zone, consisting of a one-metre plinth and 370 cm main panels, he added a heavily loaded cornice made of a gilded wooden profile and placed upon it an openwork woodcarving decoration of bas-reliefs and figural sculptures covered in leaf gold;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Behind the woodcarving decoration, intentionally placed very high (5 metres from the floor) and partially obscuring the upper part of the walls for a viewer looking from below, an imitation amber mosaic painted in oil on canvas was created. The author of the 30-metre-long and 270-cm-wide painted frieze running around three walls of the chamber was Ivan Belsky;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • above all the doors Rastrelli added impressive overdoor decorations made in deep relief with gold leaf \u2013 this gave the impression of a natural raising of the doorways, rather than a shortage of amber;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The bases of the mirrored pilasters in the plinth, which lacked amber panels, were decorated with a painted ornament imitating amber.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
    \"Palac\"
    A contemporary view of part of the facade of Catherine I's Palace from the park side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Rastrelli also ensured that the arrangement was supplemented with new, attractive and expensive elements:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    • the room acquired a multicoloured floor made of exotic wood species and a monumental painted scene on the ceiling, \u201cThe Triumph of Wisdom over Delight\u201d;<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • French gilt bronzes (wall lights and chandeliers) proved to be an important compositional element, creating a lighting system that enhanced the beauty of the amber.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

      In the spring of 1756, Empress Elizabeth was already able to admire the Amber Room in all the beauty and splendour bestowed upon it by Rastrelli's talent. However, many details required finishing touches, or even replacement with genuine amber works instead of their painted illusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \"Project
      Compositional layout of the Amber Room, part I<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

      Around 1765, during the reign of Empress Catherine II, a significant number of furniture pieces and decorative items made purely of amber or veneered with amber plaques were gathered in the chamber. Historic caskets, small altars, crucifixes, chess sets, vessels, candlesticks and many other items previously acquired as gifts or requisitions from areas occupied by the Russian army (including Poland, especially Gda\u0144sk) were collected here. The furniture, including a large table for 12 people with amber inlay, was made by a large amber workshop set up on site in Tsarskoye Selo (employing up to 200 people) under the direction of Friedrich Roggenbucke, a master from K\u00f6nigsberg, and later his son Johann.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \"Project

      Compositional layout of the Amber Room, Part II<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

      Filling the chamber with a multitude of amber objects, whose sight was repeated many times over in the pilaster mirrors, intensified the impression of the abundance and ubiquity of amber. Unfortunately, none of the furniture made in Tsarskoye Selo stood the test of time \u2013 they no longer existed by the middle of the 19th century. During their manufacture, the differences in the shrinkage of wood and amber under conditions of temperature changes and relative humidity were not taken into account. Moreover, the chamber was used sporadically during imperial visits and only then was it heavily heated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Until the end of the 18th century, the decor of the Amber Room was continually enriched until it eventually became a magnificent collection of works of art ranging from the Baroque through the Rococo to Classicism. It is impossible to list the hundreds of additions, nor can one omit the specific and characteristic gift from Empress Maria Theresa of Austria in the form of four semi-precious stone mosaics. These were small pictures \u2013 allegories of the five senses (touch and smell on a single composition \u2013 the only fragment of the decoration to survive the war), crafted in Florence after cartoons by Giuseppe Zocchi in the technique known as *pietra dura*.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \"Wall
      View of the north wall of the Amber Room from 1937<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

      During the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the condition of the Amber Room's interior decor deteriorated. The movable amber furnishings were moved from it to other rooms of the palace (which in 1910 was named after Catherine I), and the wall decoration was to be transported in 1912 to Gda\u0144sk for thorough conservation by the firm \u201cMoritz Stumpf & Sohn\u201d. The outbreak of the First World War stood in the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      After the 1917 revolution, no more thorough conservation was undertaken, and elements falling off the wall panels were merely stuck back on from time to time with various adhesives. The interior is now empty, with equestrian monument of Frederick the Great,<\/span>of the King of Prussia, in the middle of the chamber, was left unchanged in its pre-revolutionary arrangement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      The room was inaccessible to the general public, and in total, very few people were able to view it during both the Tsarist era and the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \"Leaves\"
      Fragments of the Amber Room decor left behind by the Germans following the looting on 17 September 1941.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

      Just 87 days after the outbreak of the German-Soviet war in 1941, the Wehrmacht managed to reach Tsarskoye Selo and immediately set about stripping the walls of the Amber Room of the decoration left behind by the Russians. German sappers did this within 36 hours of entering the palace, leaving on the floor only a few dozen fragments of the composition<\/span>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The Amber Chamber remains, in the field of amber art, the most famous work of art of all time, although no one alive today has had the opportunity to see it since August 1944, when it was packed in airtight boxes at the K\u00f6nigsberg Castle and then transported to an unknown location.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":27861,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"slim_seo":{"title":"Bursztynowa Komnata w carskich pa\u0142acach - Amber Portal","description":"The Amber Room remains the most famous work of art of all time in the field of amber craftsmanship, although since August 1944, when at K\u00f6nigsberg Castle"},"_slim_seo_primary_term_post_tag":0,"_slim_seo_primary_term_lokalizacja":0,"_slim_seo_primary_term_temat":0},"tags":[156],"lokalizacja":[],"temat":[226],"class_list":["post-13678","bursztyn","type-bursztyn","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-bursztynowa-komnata","temat-historia-bursztynu"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bursztyn\/13678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bursztyn"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bursztyn"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13678"},{"taxonomy":"lokalizacja","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lokalizacja?post=13678"},{"taxonomy":"temat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/temat?post=13678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}