Hermitage Theatre Hermitage Theatre The Hermitage Theatre () in Saint Petersburg, Russia is one of five Hermitage buildings lining the Palace Embankment of the Neva River. The Hermitage Theatre was the second theatre of the Winter Palace. It replaced the Russian Imperial Theater, which operated from 1764 until 1783. The Hermitage Theatre was built between 1783 and 1787 at the behest of Catherine the Great to a Palladian design by Giacomo Quarenghi. The crumbling Third Winter Palace of Peter the Great was demolished to make room for the new structure, although its old foundations are still visible in the ground floor. Quarenghi's
Hermitage Museum 1858, occupies the first floor of the Northern Pavilion in the Small Hermitage. It features the 18th-century golden Peacock Clock by James Cox and a collection of mosaics. The floor of the hall is adorned with a 19th-century imitation of an ancient Roman mosaic. Two galleries spanning the west side of the Small Hermitage from the Northern to Southern Pavilion house an exhibition of Western European decorative and applied art from the 12th to 15th century and the fine art of the Low Countries from the 15th and 16th centuries. The rooms on the first floor of the Old Hermitage