Research Notes
Take Us to Our Leader, or Who Interceded with the Autocrat for Russian Artists in the Eighteenth Century?
During discussion of Tony Cross's paper on representations of Catherine the Great at the January 2018 Hoddesdon meeting, Gareth Jones raised the question of how Russian artists would have been brought to the attention of the Empress.
The answer seems to have been by sympathetic members of the nobility and, in many cases, by foreign artists and other foreigners in related activities working for the autocrat.
Falconet interceded with Catherine on behalf of Losenko in 1770,[1] Androsova suggested that Reifenstein (Catherine's German agent in Rome) influenced the autocrat in favour of the veduta painter Fedor Alekseev in the late 1770s, after the artist had fallen out of favour with Catherine's agent in Venice,[2] though this is not a suggestion supported by other specialists on Alekseev's life and work. Mishina noted that Grimm commended the engraver Gavril Skorodumov to Catherine the Great while Skorodumov was still in Paris in the early 1780s.[3] In a later period, and in relation to the family of Pavel Petrovich while he was still heir to the throne, Alekseeva suggested that Borovikovskii painted his portrait of Konstantin Pavlovich from life in 1795, having been recommended to Maria Feodorovna by Lampi, who was painting his portrait of her in the park at Pavlovsk at the time.[4] Earlier on, Sakharova suggested that Antropov received his commission to paint Peter III in 1762 through the Vorontsovs - Antropov also painted Elizaveta Vorontsova in 1762.[5] Kaganovich and Gavrilova both pointed out that Ivan Shuvalov interceded with Catherine on behalf of Losenko in early 1763, though Gavrilova argues that it was the artist's work, rather than Losenko in person, which was presented to Catherine by Shuvalov, in Moscow for Catherine's coronation.[6] Romanycheva argued that it was Shuvalov who commended Rokotov as a suitable artist to paint portraits of the future Peter III and Catherine II and their son Pavel Petrovich in the early 1760s.[7]
In terms of actually being presented to the monarch (or painting her and her family from life) though there is doubt as to whether Losenko was presented to Catherine as a 25-year old student in 1763, there is no doubt that Catherine visited his studio, sending a humble request to be permitted to do so, while he was working on Vladimir and Rogneda in 1770.[8] Catherine dealt directly with Skorodumov after he was appointed engraver to the Empress on his return to St. Petersburg in 1782.[9] Alekseeva argued that Borovikovskii made his 1796 portrait of Pavel Petrovich from life.[10]
A sitting or a personal meeting were not, however, the only ways that Russian artists could have seen their ruler and based their portraits on life in the eighteenth century. Romanycheva, Tselishcheva, Presnova and Alekseeva all suggested that Rokotov, Shchukin and Borovikovskii would have based their portraits of Catherine and Paul on observations of their subjects made (in Catherine's case) during her coronation celebrations in Moscow and while out for walks in and around St. Petersburg and (in the case of Paul) during his regular visits to the Academy of Arts and at celebrations and festivals in St. Petersburg and nearby.[11] Markina suggested that this was also how the German painter Grooth would have seen Elizabeth in the middle of the century.[12]
– Andrew Curtin, University of Essex
NOTES:
[1] А. Л. Каганович, Антон Лосенко и русское искусство середины XVIII столетия (Москва, 1963). cc. 237-238.
[2] М. И. Андросова, Федор Алексеев. 1753-1824 (Ленинград, 1979), с. 13.
[3] Е. А. Мишина, Гаврила Скородумов (Санкт-Петербург, 2003), c. 24.
[4] Т. В. Алексеева, Владимир Лукич Боровиковский и русская культура на рубеже 18го - 19го веков (Москва, 1975), с.109.
[5] И. Сахарова, Алексей Антропов (Москва, 1974), с. 94.
[6] Каганович, c. 44. Е. И. Гаврилова, Антон Павлович Лосенко (Ленинград, 1977), с. 14.
[7] И. Г. Романычева, Федор Рокотов (Санкт-Петербург, 2008), с. 82.
[8] Каганович, cc. 169-170.
[9] Мишина, cc. 24-25.
[10] Алексеева, с. 148.
[11] Романычева, с. 93; Алексеева, с. 100; А. Н. Целищева, Степан Семёнович Щукин, 1762-1828 (Москва, 1979), с. 92; Н. Г. Преснова, 'Федор Рокотов: столицы и усадьбы', in Государственная Третьяковская Галерея, Федор Рокотов 1735/6 - 1808 (Москва, 2016), с. 14 [exhibition catalogue]
[12] Л. А. Маркина, Портретист Георг Христоф Гроот и немецкие живописцы в России середины XVIII века (Москва, 1999), c. 14.
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