The Dining Room
A geometric, Classicist interior with walls covered with paintings depicting landscapes of Rome and Venice – by Jan Bogumił Plersch – inspired by etchings which were popular at the time. On the main wall, visitors will be able to contemplate the View of Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome, while on the opposing wall the Casina Pio IV in Vatican City, and on both sides of the eastern window – Views of St Mark’s Square in Venice. Non-painted wall spaces are decorated with flower motifs. On one end of the longer axis of the room is a porte-fenêtre, and on the other – a marble fireplace, above which hangs a mirror. On the mantelpiece of the fireplace is a marble bust of Madame du Barry, Louis XV’s mistress, by a French sculptor Augustin Pajou (1734–1809), and on the sides – two candlesticks with crystals. Inside the fireplace – two Classicist firewood racks with grills. On the opposite side of the room, on a column, stands a marble, octagonal krater vase with a bas-relief skull – a copy of an ancient sculpture from the Vatican collections.
Beyond the rococo-style armchairs and chairs, the room’s furnishing comprises two Baroque inlaid commodes, on which two marble busts are placed: Athena by Johannes Schultz, made in Rome in 1787, and an 18th-century copy of a popular Roman sculpture thought to be the portrait of Cicero (the original is displayed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence).