The Formal Reception Room

The royal family used the Formal Reception Room to entertain favoured guests. It was dominated by a large portrait of Empress Alexandra by Makovsky, a Gobelins tapestry of Vigée Le Brun’s portrait of Marie Antoinette and her children (presented to Alexandra when she visited Versailles in 1895), and a painting of Nicholas II’S coronation. The famous formal photographs of Nicholas and Alexandra’s four daughters were taken in this room in 1913.