In June 2026 , the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoe Selo will unveil the Chinese Hall fully restored to its former glory. It will be available to visitors of Catherine Palace Tour 4.
One of the Private Rooms of Catherine the Great in the Zubov (South) Wing of the palace, the Chinese Hall was designed by architect Charles Cameron in the late eighteenth century, lost during the Nazi occupation in 1941–44, and reconstructed thanks to PJSC Gazprom in 2019–24. The final touches are now being added by the restorers finishing the painstaking installation of 155 lacquer panels on the walls.
The original magnificent decoration of the Chinese Hall featured 17th- and 18th-century Chinese lacquer panels depicting traditional subjects: figures in landscapes, figures on clouds, Taoist immortals, and various landscapes with palaces, bridges, pavilions, gazebos, trees, capes and islands. The panels of two types—polychrome lacquers in the kuan cai technique, a.k.a. Coromandel lacquer in Europe, and gold-on-black lacquers in the miaojin technique—are reconstructed by highly qualified craftsmen of Beijing New Dancing Lion Art Co., Ltd. (Beijing Xinxingshi), with technical drawings made by the Tsarskoselskaya Amber Workshop and financial support from Gazprom's Social Initiatives Support Foundation. A pilot production of two trial panels in 2022 was supervised by Mr Cheng Xiangjun, a lacquer art specialist and associate professor at Tsinghua University and director of Lacquer Art Committee in the Chinese Arts and Crafts Artists Association, and by lacquer restoration specialists from the Palace Museum of Beijing.
The scientific reconstruction of the Coromandel lacquers is based on the surviving 18th-century samples from the Chinese Theatre in the Alexander Park, as well as on an authentic seventeenth-century Chinese twelve-panel screen from the State Hermitage collection. The gold on black lacquers' reconstruction refers to images on eighteenth-century Chinese furniture pieces preserved in Tsarskoe Selo and other museums, and on a screen and a tray of the same period from the collection of Tsarskoe Selo.
The 180.5-square-metre hall has the lacquer decorations placed from the ceiling to the floor, in three tiers:
- Upper tier: Large gold-on-black panels
- Middle tier: Large 4.5-metre tall and 6-metre tall polychrome panels
- Lower tier: Gold-on-black tea trays
- Overdoors: Semicircular gold-on-black lacquer panels
- One large black lacquer panel for enamel mounts (to be restored later)
Our museum's long-time partner in restoration projects, the Tsarskoselskaya Amber Workshop reconstructed 34 frames for the lacquer panels, based on old watercolours and photographs in our collection. According to our researchers' hypothesis, the original "frame boards" were brought from China during the reign of Peter the Great.
The historic interior will also regain its reconstructed magnificent chandeliers and some of its original furniture, including 18th-century chairs from Guangzhou, Cameron's table and armchairs, and console tables. In 2025, twelve decorative chinoiserie sets were reconstructed and installed over the Hall's doors and windows.
The Chinese Hall is the largest room restored during our project The Private Space of Catherine II, which was launched together with PJSC Gazprom in 2019. The other seven Private Rooms of Catherine II are the Blue Study or Snuffbox, the Mirror and Silver Studies, the Bedchamber, the Domed Hall, the Dressing Room and the Raphael Room. Those were the private apartments of Catherine the Great, designed for her by the architects Charles Cameron and Giacomo Quarenghi in the eighteenth century and destroyed during the Second World War.
