State Diamond Fund (Moscow)

 State Diamond Fund (Алмазная Палата) (Moscow)

 

 

Tel. 629 2036

Open: 10am- 1pm, 2pm- 5pm Fri- Wed

 

Description of the State Diamond Fund

State Diamond Fund (Алмазный фонд) holds the rooms on the first floor of the State Armoury. State Diamond Fund was found in 1719 by Russian Emperor Peter I to store important government documents as well as valuables including items made of diamonds, gold and other state jewellery. Originally all valuables of Moscow Kremlin Diamond Fund were placed in a single chest box that was put inside a bigger one, which in turn was put inside another one. On significant days three noblemen came inside State Diamond Fund and opened three chests with three separate keys that they kept. State Diamonds didn't actually belong to the Romanov (or Romanoff) Dynasty that ruled Russian from 1613 to 1917. Instead the rented their jewellery from the government. During World War I most of state jewellery was moved from Russian capital of Saint Petersburg to Moscow for safekeeping. Soon thereafter capital was moved here as well. Newly established Soviet government sold many of items between 1927 and 1933 to support massive industrialization of the country. Many jewels were lost including eggs of Faberge, precious stones and many others. In 1967 State Diamond Fund was opened to the public on the regular bases. It houses some of the most precious stones, crowns and personal items that once belonged to the Romanov Imperial family and aristocracy.

 

History

Petersburg period
Royal rentery under Peter I
On December 22, 1719, by decree of Peter I, a special chamber board was organized - the first state organization to control the unique imperial jewels. The regulations of the College of Chambers contained the first complete list of orders, ceremonial jewelry and state regalia, and also indicated the procedure for their storage in the Royal Renterium. Borrowed from the German language, the word "renteria" is the old name for the treasury. In the future, the Tsar's rentery was called "The Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty the Diamond or Diamond Room." The decree of Peter I legally defined renteria as the basis of the State Fund of Precious Metals and Stones of Russia.

Along with the imperial regalia, the Renteria collection was replenished with unique valuables from all over the world and jewelry, which the Cabinet of the Court ordered for awards and gifts from court jewelers. According to the regulations, it was possible to receive any item from the vault only by direct order of the emperor. The jewels were stored literally “behind three locks”: three close courtiers - the chamber president, the chamber adviser and the royal rentmaster - each had a unique key, and only when they got together they could open the treasury.

Peter I invited jewelers from all over Europe to the new capital, their masterpieces actively replenished the stocks of the imperial treasury. The most sought-after court jeweler of that time was the Swiss Jeremy Pozier, who had the idea to model future products from wax. Since 1730, he lived and worked in Russia, fulfilling numerous orders at the court, it was he who was instructed to make the Great Imperial Crown for the coronation of Catherine II in 1762. Other famous court jewelers of that era were Louis-David Duval and his sons, Leopold Pfisterer, Georg Friedrich Eckart.

Diamond room of Catherine II
The Russian imperial court was famous for its splendor and wealth, which flourished during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna and Catherine II. The latter was especially fond of precious stones, she introduced at court the fashion for "card games on iridescent crystals", the empress even named her personal stallion Diamond. Under Catherine II, the imperial collection received the most significant amount of treasures.

In 1762, immediately after accession to the throne, Catherine II ordered to equip a special room for storing jewelry. By 1764, the empress's bedchamber from the complex of ceremonial chambers was converted into the Diamond Room, the interior of which was created by the architect Yuri Felten. By this year, jewels from other residences of the court were brought to St. Petersburg, tested, marked, weighed and entered into registers. The Diamond Room was located on the second floor of the southeastern risalit of the Winter Palace, and overlooked the Palace Square and the modern Millionnaya Street.

According to Felten's project, the imperial regalia were placed on a table in the center of the room under a crystal dome. The collection grew and soon new storage facilities were needed - glazed showcases, which were made by cabinetmaker David Roentgen.

"State regalia are ... under a cap, on the walls of this room there are several cupboards with glass, where there is a lot of decorations of diamond and other precious stones, in others there are a great many orders, portraits of Her Imperial Majesty, snuff boxes, watches and chains, ready-made, rings , bows, golden sword hilts and other precious things. From this the Monarchine chooses what She pleases for the gifts she gives away."
Johann Gottlieb Georgi

Although the Diamond Room was a "secret" room with enhanced security and a whole staff of servants, it was not only a treasury, but was residential and was used for meetings between the Empress and those close to her. On frosty days, even church services were sometimes held in it. The keys to the glazed cabinets were at the camera-jungfer Anna Konstantinovna Skorokhodova. There were so many jewels that even with the most careful accounting they were sometimes lost. For example, this happened with the unique panagia by Louis-David Duval, which Catherine II herself wrote about in her note to Grigory Potemkin: “For two years I was looking for a panagia, and it lay in a box that ... no one looked into.”

In the late 1780s, the Raphael Loggias building was built along the Winter Canal, where, by order of the Empress, a second Diamond Room was set up. The main set of imperial regalia remained next to the throne room of Catherine II, probably, two Diamond Rooms existed in parallel for some time.

 

Jewels of Maria Feodorovna

After the death of Catherine II in November 1796, the Diamond Room was included in the private apartments of Empress Maria Feodorovna, wife of Paul I. At that time, the room was located on the site of the current hall No. 238 of the State Hermitage, closing the enfilade axis of the new empress's chambers. After 1799, three pantries were created in the Luggage Office for storing diamonds and jewelry, each with specific functions.

The diamond room was officially called "Pantry No. 1 of the Cameral Department of the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty" and was intended to store imperial regalia and crown diamonds "for all eternity." In Pantry No. 2 there were furs, collections of precious stones, premium and gift jewelry. Here was the dowry of the Grand Duchesses who left after marriage abroad, so the collection was constantly changing. Pantry No. 3 was set aside for various stone products and was replenished by the mining department of the Cameral Department. He was in charge of grinding and cutting factories, porcelain, glass and mirror factories. The famous porcelain and stone Easter eggs that the imperial family gave to their servants and associates were located in the third pantry.

Significant sums passed through three storerooms every year: in the period from 1797 to 1801 alone, more than 3.5 million rubles were spent on the purchase of jewelry. According to the memoirs of the Prussian princess Charlotte, in baptism - Alexandra Feodorovna, in 1817, before the wedding, Maria Feodorovna personally chose for her a crown and "countless crown decorations, under which [the princess] felt barely alive." At the same time, Maria Feodorovna gave her daughter-in-law a five-strand pearl necklace worth 142,579 rubles. After the wedding ceremony, the jewels returned to the Diamond Room, "which at that time adjoined the Empress Dowager's bedroom."

Under Maria Feodorovna, brides from the imperial family were gathering in the Diamond Room before solemn marriage ceremonies. In the diary of the Prussian Chief Hoffmeister Countess Foss, there is an entry about visiting St. Petersburg in 1809, and in particular about the Diamond Room: “We dined like a family at the Queen Mother. Before dinner, I looked around the room, which contains a whole collection of the most wonderful fur coats for gifts. One, of a magnificent black-brown fox, is intended for our queen; diamonds, rings, necklaces, in a word, all kinds of jewelry are stored here, from which the Tsar himself chooses gifts for the elect.

In 1817-1818, the leading architect of that time, Carl Rossi, developed a project for the restructuring of Maria Feodorovna's apartments. According to his plan, the Diamond Room was to move again and take the place of the modern hall of the Hermitage No. 289. For a number of reasons, this project was not implemented, and after the death of Maria Feodorovna and the ascension to the throne of Nicholas I, the Diamond Room was transferred from the main chambers to the service premises. Approximately in the same years, part of the jewelry was transferred to the “Diamond Pantry” (pantry No. 1 of the Cameral Department of the Cabinet) - it was arranged on the third floor of the palace, near the Church Stairs under the Small Cathedral. Under Nicholas I, officials of the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty already clearly distinguished between the personal collections of emperors and the state collections of the Hermitage.

Maria Feodorovna was the first empress for whom the first coronation small imperial crown was made - before they were used only for everyday exits. The wife of Paul I wore a crown ordered by Catherine II from Jean-Francois Loubier at the end of 1795. The jeweler completed the work only in 1797, during preparations for the coronation of the new imperial couple. Until 1828, the crown was kept in the private chambers of Maria Feodorovna, and after her death it entered the Diamond Room, where it received an estimated value of 48,750 rubles. At the court, there was a tradition to dismantle small crowns after the death of the owners, and distribute the stones from it to the heirs according to the will. The small imperial crown of Maria Feodorovna was dismantled in 1840 by decree of Nicholas I and later turned into a diamond headdress of Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna