The watercolour by the Moscow artist Nikolai Gerene depicts the exotic “Oriental” interior of a room in a classical mansion. It is a clear manifestation of the passion for the East that arose in Russia at the end of the 18th century. In the 1820s and 1830s (during the Caucasian and Russo-Turkish wars) it reached a climax: there was a fashion for “Oriental” boudoirs, and Turkish smoking rooms or divan rooms.
Mediaeval suits of armour – helmets, a metal breastplate, chain armour and gloves – hang on the walls of the room decorated with the paisley motif. There are both European and Oriental weapons: round Asian shields, daggers, scimitars in scabbards, bows and quivers with arrows, war horns, saddles, stirrups and much more. In the room there is a wide sofa covered with lion and tiger skins; in front of it is a carpet decorated with arabesques. The master of the house is depicted on the sofa wearing a beshmet, a Circassian coat and a headdress typical of the North Caucasus. He is smoking a hookah, next to him is a tobacco-holder with an open lid. On both sides of the sofa, near the walls, there are pieces of furniture new to the Russian way of life: racks with long smoking pipes, Chibouks. At the sofa there is a pouffe with a pet monkey that peacefully coexists with a lap dog. A sea shell, a skull, and glass and porcelain vessels are placed on the shelf; Chinese vases stand on pedestals in the corners of the room.
The combination of the armoury room in the spirit of European chivalry with Oriental exotics testifies to the desire of the young and undoubtedly educated master of the house to follow the dictates of the latest fashion. It is no coincidence that the statuette of Napoleon in the next room noticed by the artist proves it. According to Pyotr Vyazemsky, “you inevitably come across it in the den of every curious and reflective contemporary”.
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