HALL 6. CHURCH VESTMENT, PICTORIAL AND ORNAMENTAL EMBROIDERY OF THE 14TH - 18TH CENTURIES. RUSSIAN ROYAL GARMENT IN THE 16TH - EARLY 20TH CENTURY

On display in Hall 6 is a collection of vestment that belonged to Russian metropolitans and patriarchs as well as ceremonial clothing of Russian tsars, emperors and empresses.

Vestment of Russian hierarchs, decorative embroidery, most of which came into the collection of the Armoury Chamber from the Patriarch’s vestry of the Moscow Kremlin, Moscow churches and monasteries. That precious hand-made fabric was produced by masters of the Orient, West Europe and Russia in the 16th-17th centuries, now presenting exceptional historical, cultural and artistic value.

The gem of the secular dress collection of the 16th-17th centuries is a parade garment of Peter the Great— fitted caftan, luxurious state robe and a famous ‘black Dutch suit’—an excellent example of a sudden transition from national Russian to European dress style in the 17th-18th centuries.

Coronation dresses and mantles of Russian emperors and empresses were an essential feature of court ceremonial; they remind of significant events in the history of the 18th and 19th-centuries Russia and help to trace the development of court dresses.