The Arabian Hall, sometimes known as the Blackamoor Hall or the Arabian Dining Room, is one of the semi-private rooms of the Winter Palace

Winter Palace

The Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia, was, from 1732 to 1917, the official residence of the Russian monarchs. Situated between the Palace Embankment and the Palace Square, adjacent to the site of Peter the Great's original Winter Palace, the present and fourth Winter Palace was built and...

 in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

. In the Tsar

Tsar

Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

ist era, it was the room from which imperial processions through the state room

State room

A state room in a large European mansion is usually one of a suite of very grand rooms which were designed to impress. The term was most widely used in the 17th and 18th centuries. They were the most lavishly decorated in the house and contained the finest works of art...

s began. The double doors were designed to be on a straight axis through the principal state rooms and ultimately the Jordan Staircase

Jordan Staircase of the Winter Palace

The principal or Jordan Staircase of the Winter Palace, St Petersburg is so called because on the Feast of the Epiphany the Tsar descended this imperial staircase in state for the ceremony of the "Blessing of the Waters" of the Neva River, a celebration of Christ's baptism in the Jordan River. The...

, forming an enfilade

Enfilade (architecture)

In architecture, an enfilade is a suite of rooms formally aligned with each other. This was a common feature in grand European architecture from the Baroque period onwards, although there are earlier examples, such as the Vatican stanze...

. Thus it was here the Romanov family often assembled, in private, before state receptions and occasions. The privacy of the room was not compromised by the small private courtyard (see plan) from which windows, which once led to the Tsaritsa's winter-garden below, admitted light.

Designed by Alexander Briullov following the Winter Palace fire of 1837, the room is decorated in the neoclassical

Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...

 style fashionable in the early 19th century, known as Pompei

Pompei

Pompei is a city and comune in the province of Naples in Campania, southern Italy, famous for its ancient Roman ruins. As of 2010 its population was of 25,671.-History:...

an. A ceiling, with a low segmental barrel vault

Barrel vault

A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault or a wagon vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve along a given distance. The curves are typically circular in shape, lending a semi-cylindrical appearance to the total design...

 with bands of shallow coffer

Coffer

A coffer in architecture, is a sunken panel in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault...

ing stucco

Stucco

Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...

ed with classical motifs, is seemingly supported by a colonnade

Colonnade

In classical architecture, a colonnade denotes a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building....

 of engaged fluted Greek Doric

Doric order

The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...

 columns with enriched echinus

Ovolo

Ovolo in architecture, is a convex molding known also as the echinus, which in Classical architecture was invariably carved with the egg-and-dart ornament. The molding is called a quarter-round by woodworkers...

 molding and no bases. A Greek key fret enriches the entablature

Entablature

An entablature refers to the superstructure of moldings and bands which lie horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and are commonly divided into the architrave , the frieze ,...

 that runs without a break round the room. The only furnishings were the dining chairs of Greek klismos

Klismos

A klismos or klismos chair is a type of ancient Greek chair, familiar from depictions on painted pottery and in bas-reliefs from the mid-fifth century BCE onwards...

 type, formally ranged round the walls. When the Imperial family were to dine here, dining tables would be brought in, covered and laid, then removed afterwards.

The various geographically confused names of the Arabian Hall derive, not from any peculiar contents, but from the four official pseudo-bodyguards of the Tsar who travelled from palace to palace with the Imperial family. They were four "massive Negroes" fantastically dressed in scarlet trousers, gold jackets, white turbans and curved shoes. Wherever the Tsar was, they guarded the doors between the private and official world. They had no other function other than to open and close doors; their sudden, but silent appearance into a room was the signal that heralded the immediate appearance of the Tsar or Tsaritsa

Tsaritsa

Tsaritsa , formerly spelled czaritsa , is the title of a female autocratic ruler of Bulgaria or Russia, or the title of a tsar's wife....

.

Although the guards were referred to as the Ethiopians or Blackamoors, from 1896, at least one was an American. Jim Hercules holidayed in the USA and always returned with jars of guava jelly

Guava

Guavas are plants in the myrtle family genus Psidium , which contains about 100 species of tropical shrubs and small trees. They are native to Mexico, Central America, and northern South America...

 for the Imperial children.

Today, the empty hall is occasionally used for special exhibitions held by the State Hermitage Museum.

External links

• The same view of the Arabian Hall today Flickr. Retrieved 13 November 2008.