Note the fashionable flower arrangement in the right-hand corner being used as a screen for the fireplace. Visitors were fascinated by such flower-pieces. The Marquis de Custine noted that 'the residences of several Russians of taste are distinguished by a peculiar ornament, a little artificial garden in a corner of the drawing-room.' (The History of Russia, p.149). Custine believed that this fashion would soon be taken up in France but, in fact, it never caught on there but features prominently in Austrian and German interiors.