The Empire Style—sometimes considered the second phase of Neoclassicism, an early-nineteenth-century design movement in architecture, furniture, other decorative arts, and the visual arts—originated in and takes its name from the period when Napoleon I ruled France, known as the First French Empire, where it had been intended to idealize Napoleon's leadership and the French state.

The style had taken particular root in Imperial Russia, where it has been used to celebrate the victory over Napoleon in such memorial structures as the Russian Admiralty, Kazan Cathedral, Alexander Column, and Narva Triumphal Gate.

From 1824-1834, the prominent St. Petersburg architect Vasily Stasov, under the supervision of Karol Podczaszynski, has reconstructed the Bishops’ Palace of Vilnius in the Empire style; his reconstruction of the Palace remains to this day.