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Beyond the Great Hall is the dining room for the courtiers in attendance, or the Courtiers-In-Attendance Dining Room, designed by Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli in the mid-18th century. This room is not very large. It is lit by four windows which look out onto the formal courtyard. The architect placed false windows with mirrors and mirrored glass on the opposite wall. This made the hall more spacious and light. The decoration of the hall is typical for the baroque interior style: gilded carvings on the walls, complex gilded pieces over the doors, whimsical ornamental patterns of stylised flowers and delicate shells. Each detail of the carvings was executed by a master who introduced his own, subtle yet unavoidable divergences from the original, making it a unique work of art.
The room was gilded until 1861. Then the carvings were covered in silver and the room received the name Silver Dining Room. This interior was preserved until World War II. But the integrity of the Golden Enfilade designed by Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli in the Catherine Palace had already been compromised. The room was re-gilded during the post-war restoration process in accordance with Rastrelli's plans. The tiered ceramic tile stove with its cobalt ornament, miniature columns, and niches is a unique decoration in this interior. Such stoves were an inseparable part of all formal rooms designed by Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli in the Catherine Palace.
The ceiling mural in the Courtiers-In-Attendance Dining Room was painted by a well-known artist of the Russian School from the mid-18th century and based on Greek myth of the sun god Helios and the goddess of the dawn, Eos. Helios and Eos are surrounded by figures personifying the seasons. The mural is accompanied by stucco medallions with painting inserts.
The chairs produced according to 18th century examples go along harmoniously with the carved decor of the walls. In the centre of the hall stands a banquet table in the form of the letter "E," and the monogram of Empress Elizabeth. The table contains various objects of "order" services decorated with the medals and ribbons of Russian orders and produced during the late 18th century by the F. Gardner porcelain factory. These china services were commissioned to commemorate three Russian orders: St. Alexander Nevsky, St. Andrei Pervozvanny, and St. George. Later, once the order of St. Vladimir had been established, a fourth service was commissioned. For decades these services magnificently decorated the tables and were intended for dinners on festival days for cavaliers of the four Russian orders.
