Courtly Gifts and Cultural Diplomacy Art, Material Culture, and British-Russian Relations

Courtly Gifts and Cultural Diplomacy
- 978-3-657-79376-1
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Russian History and Culture
Editors-in-Chief
Jeffrey P. Brooks (The Johns Hopkins University)

Christina Lodder (University of Kent)
Volume 24
- 978-3-657-79376-1
Courtly Gifts and
Cultural Diplomacy
Art, Material Culture, and British-Russian Relations
Edited by
Louise Hardiman
- 978-3-657-79376-1
Cover photo: Plate (part of a dessert service), 1845. Coalport Porcelain Company, Shropshire. Porcelain,
polychrome painting, gilded, 2.7 × 25.5 × 25.5 cm (diameter), Royal Collection Trust.
ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST / © HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2021
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ISSN 1877-7791
ISBN 978-3-506-79376-8 (hardback)
ISBN 978-3-657-79376-1 (e-book)
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
List of Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
Notes on Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxii
Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxvi
1. Introduction: Visual Culture and the History of British-Russian

Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Louise Hardiman
Part I
Art and Diplomacy
2. Art and Acculturation: Sir Godfrey Kneller’s Portraits of

Petr Potemkin (1682) and Peter the Great (1698) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Louise Hardiman
3. Catherine II, the Cathcarts, and Russian Anglophilia . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Anthony Cross
4 Prince Grigorii Potemkin, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Anglo-Russian

Artistic Diplomacy in the Age of Catherine the Great . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Elizaveta Renne
Part II
The Agency of Gifts
5. “Give with One Hand and Take with the Other:”

British Diplomatic Gifts to Russia, 1795–97 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Ekaterina Heath
6. Courtly Splendour and Cultural Identity: Nineteenth-century

Russian Imperial Gifts for the British Royal Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Caroline de Guitaut
7. Alfred, Lord Tennyson and an Imperial Russian Gift . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Olga Sobolev
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vi Table of Contents
8. Fabergé Hardstone in Imperial Gifting from Russia

to England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Cynthia Coleman Sparke
Part III
Travels and Dialogues
9. Gavriil Skorodumov and James Walker: Printmaking and

British-Russian Relations in the Late Eighteenth Century . . . . . . . 223
Zalina Tetermazova
10. “Smart Travels:” The Encounters of Grand Duke Nicholas

with British Art and Artists, 1816–17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Irina Marisina
11. Tsar Alexander I, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and George Dawe:

Masculinity and the Development of the St Petersburg
Military Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Allison Leigh
Part IV
Dynasties and Domesticities
12. The Wedding of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and

Maria Alexandrovna of Russia in 1874 and its
Visual Commemoration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Stephen Patterson
13. Images of Nicholas II: (Mis-)interpreting the Last Tsar . . . . . . . . . . 351

Wendy Slater
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
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Acknowledgements
As with many edited essay collections, this book’s genesis is associated with an
academic conference. In this case the event concerned was especially excit-
ing, for it was linked to a groundbreaking exhibition that would show, for the
very first time, one of the most significant private collections of Russian art in
the west—that of the British monarchy. “Russia, Royalty and the Romanovs”
was organised by Royal Collection Trust and held in The Queen’s Gallery in
Buckingham Palace from November 9, 2018 to April 28, 2019 and subsequently
in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh from June 21, 2019 to November 3,
2019. Taking place at a time when Britain and Russia were experiencing a
period of heightened diplomatic tension, the exhibition was a reminder of the
continuing potential held by culture in matters of diplomacy, and this was wit-
nessed by the positive response from its diverse audiences—the public, visit-
ing tourists, and the art, business, and academic communities.
Having spent much of the past decade researching the history of British-
Russian artistic relations, I kept a close eye on news of the exhibition. Then,
in 2018, when Caroline de Guitaut, Deputy Surveyor of the Queen’s Works of
Art for Royal Collection Trust, invited the Cambridge Courtauld Russian Art
Centre (CCRAC), of which I am a member, to organise a one-day academic
conference, I was delighted to accept the opportunity to co-convene this
together with Professor Rosalind P. Blakesley of the University of Cambridge.
A committee to oversee the project was established, comprising De Guitaut,
Professor John Milner of the Courtauld Institute of Art, and Michael Hall of
The Burlington Magazine, along with Blakesley and myself. Some months later,
on March 22, 2019, a diverse set of papers was presented to a packed audi-
torium in The Queen’s Gallery, with attendees from locations as far away as
Russia and California.
Many thanks are owed to those who were involved in the conference
organisation and book preparation. For the former, I thank the staff at Royal
Collection Trust, especially Emily Bourne, Alexandra Drayton, Matthew
Morgan, and Tim Knox, as well as the curators De Guitaut and Stephen
Patterson. Additional thanks are due to Anthony Cross, Simon Dixon, Galina
Mardilovich, and Emma Minns, who chaired panels. Lastly, I owe an especial
debt of thanks to my co-convenor, Rosalind Blakesley, whose wise counsel was
always on hand.
Turning to the book, my thanks go first to the eleven authors who have
shared their wide-ranging and insightful scholarship. Next, thanks are due to
Marti Huetink, former Slavic Studies editor at Brill, who was enthusiastic when
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viii Acknowledgements
I ran the idea past him at the annual conference of the Association of Slavic,
East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) in 2019. Huetink’s successor,
Diethard Sawicki at Brill Ferdinand Schöningh, has since overseen the project
with tireless efficiency, patience, and professionalism; the entire publishing
team has done a superlative job. Further support came from the two esteemed
editors of the Brill Russian History and Culture series, Professors Christina
Lodder and Jeffrey Brooks. Their input, along with feedback received from two
anonymous peer reviewers, has much improved the book, and I thank them all
wholeheartedly.
Further thanks are due to the staff of Royal Collection Trust, especially
Caroline de Guitaut and her team, and Stephen Patterson. This book benefits
not only from their extensive research for the exhibition but also the wealth
of art and knowledge in the Royal Collection and the Royal Archives. Images
used here have been licensed gratis, a generous gesture that reflects a desire
that the collection be explored, examined, and debated by scholars. Likewise,
several other museums whose objects are discussed in the book have waived
image licence fees. Chief among them is the State Hermitage Museum, which
holds a large part of the art collections assembled by the Russian monarchy.
The eminent curator Elizaveta Renne was instrumental in smoothing the path
in St Petersburg, and I am grateful too for her comments on an earlier draft
of my own chapter. The National Portrait Gallery (London), Museo del Prado
(Madrid), State Historical Museum (Moscow), Wellcome Trust (London), and
the New York Public Library, have all allowed free use of images in their col-
lections. At the last-mentioned institution, Kyle R. Triplett kindly took a new
photograph to avoid a long wait.
Closer to home, I have appreciated the intellectual companionship provided
by the CCRAC group of scholars, and encouragement from the ever-expanding
international group of specialists in Russian and Soviet art. As fellow travel-
lers in my usual territory of nineteenth-century studies, Galina Mardilovich,
Ludmila Piters-Hofmann, and Maria Taroutina are a source of inspiration in
word and deed. Mardilovich’s incisive feedback on an early draft of the intro-
duction was very welcome. The editing of this book was also buoyed at various
stages by companionship from members of the drop-in Zoom writing group
set up by Alice Little at the University of Oxford. Finally, I thank my family for
their continued support, and on behalf of the volume’s chapter authors I thank
their various networks of encouragement too.
To end on a sombre note, Courtly Gifts and Cultural Diplomacy was finalised
during the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in late 2019 and is ongoing at the
time of its publication. This inevitably presented difficulties for many of the
authors, who had unexpected challenges both at work and at home. I thank
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Acknowledgements ix
them for persevering. As editor, I felt the need to prioritise this collective proj-
ect, whose topic has international cultural dialogue at heart, and it was uplift-
ing to connect with this patient, talented, and generous group of writers. That
we have been able to continue with such academic ventures as these while
the world around us experiences a period of exceptional loss and trauma is of
course a privileged situation to be in. We cannot avert our eyes, nor avoid its
effects; we hope for better times.
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List of Illustrations
Introduction
1.1 Russiae, Moscoviae et Tartariae descriptio [The description of Russia, Muscovy,
and Tartary], from a manuscript by Anthony Jenkinson, 1562, reproduced in
Abraham Ortelius, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, English edition The Theatre of
the Whole World (London: John Norton, 1606). Oxford, Bodleian Library,
BOD: Douce O subt. 15, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/87fa90cb-
e789-4325-9578-41312ffb0acd/. Creative Commons Public Domain Mark
CC BY NC 4.0. IMAGE COURTESY OF BODLEIAN LIBRARIES,
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
1.2 Russiae, Moscoviae et Tartariae descriptio, 1562, detail. IMAGE COURTESY OF
BODLEIAN LIBRARIES, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
1.3 Ivan IV sends Osip Nepeia to England, Nikon Chronicle, 16th century, reproduced
in Vologda v minuvshem tysiacheletii: Ocherki istorii goroda (Vologda: Drevnosti
Severa, 2004), 48. IMAGE WIKIMEDIA / CREATIVE COMMONS PUBLIC
DOMAIN MARK 1.0.
1.4 Charles Cameron, Design for a Staircase in the Cold Baths at Tsarskoe Selo,
early 1780s, pen, brush, indian ink, and watercolour on paper, 62 × 45 cm, State
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. © THE STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM /
PHOTO LEONARD KHEIFETS, ALEKSEY PAKHOMOV, SVETLANA
SUETOVA, VLADIMIR TEREBENIN.
Part I: Art and Diplomacy
Hardiman
2.1 Isaac Beckett, after Sir Godfrey Kneller, A Self-portrait of Sir Godfrey Kneller,
1895, mezzotint, 36.6 × 27.8 cm (sheet), Royal Collection Trust, London. ROYAL
COLLECTION TRUST / © HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2021.
2.2 Godfrey Kneller, Portrait of Petr Potemkin, 1682, oil on canvas, 135 × 103.5
cm, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. © THE STATE HERMITAGE
MUSEUM / PHOTO LEONARD KHEIFETS, ALEKSEY PAKHOMOV,
SVETLANA SUETOVA, VLADIMIR TEREBENIN.
2.3 Juan Carreño de Miranda, Pyotr Ivanovich Potyomkin, c. 1681, oil on canvas,
207.2 × 122.8 cm, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. © MUSEO NACIONAL
DEL PRADO, MADRID.
2.4 Godfrey Kneller, Jan Wyck, The Moroccan Ambassador, Kaid Mohammed ben
Hadu, 1684, oil on canvas, 313 × 231 cm, Chiswick House, London. © HISTORIC
ENGLAND ARCHIVE.
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List of Illustrations xi
2.5 Godfrey Kneller, Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, 1698, oil on canvas, 241.7 ×
145.6 cm, The Queen’s Gallery, Kensington Palace, London. ROYAL
2.6 Godfrey Kneller, Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, 1698, detail, oil on canvas,
241.7 × 145.6 cm, The Queen’s Gallery, Kensington Palace, London. ROYAL
2.7 Robert White, after Sir Godfrey Kneller, His Excellency Peter John Potemkin,
Ambassador Extraordinary from the Czar of Moscovy, 1682, line engraving,
38 cm × 26.8 cm (sheet), National Portrait Gallery, London. © 2019 NATIONAL
PORTRAIT GALLERY.
2.8 Anonymous, Portrait of Peter I, after Godfrey Kneller, c. 1700, enamel on
copperplate, painting, silver filigree frame, 10 × 8.5 cm, State Hermitage
Museum, St Petersburg. © THE STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM / PHOTO
LEONARD KHEIFETS, ALEKSEY PAKHOMOV, SVETLANA SUETOVA,
VLADIMIR TEREBENIN.
2.9 John Smith, after Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bt., Peter I (Peter the Great), 1698,
mezzotint, 40.7 × 28.1 cm (plate), Royal Collection Trust, London. ROYAL
2.10 After Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bt., “Peter I. Czar of Russia,” engraving, reproduced
in British Autography (London: J. Thane, 1819). Royal Collection Trust, London.
ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST / © HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II
2021.
2.11 Fedor Solntsev, “Odezhda boiar v XVI i XVII stoletii. Polevoe plat’e Godunova.
Portret Afanasiia Vlas’eva. Portret stol’nika Petra Potemkina,” chromolithograph
F. Dreger, New York Public Library Digital Collections, https://digitalcollections.
nypl.org/items/510d47de-1371-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99. PHOTOGRAPH
KYLE R. TRIPLETT.
Cross
3.1 Etienne Claude Voysard, after Vigilius Eriksen, Catherina II, Empress of Russia,
engraving, Royal Collection Trust, London. ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST /
© HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2021.
3.2 Sir Joshua Reynolds, Portrait of Charles, 9th Lord Cathcart (1761), oil on canvas,
124 × 99 cm, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester. CREATIVE COMMONS
CC BY SA 4.0 / IMAGE COURTESY OF MANCHESTER ART GALLERY.
3.3 James Macardell and Richard Houston, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, Jane Cathcart
(née Hamilton), Lady Cathcart, mezzotint, published 1770, 345 × 250 mm
(paper), National Portrait Gallery, London. © 2019 NATIONAL PORTRAIT
GALLERY.
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xii List of Illustrations
3.4 Francesco Bartolozzi, after Marie-Anne Collot, Jane Hamilton, Lady Cathcart,
17th century, etching and stipple engraving, 27.5 × 21.5 cm, Bibliothèque
Sainte-Geneviève, Paris. ARCHIVE.ORG / CREATIVE COMMONS PUBLIC
DOMAIN MARK 1.0.
3.5 James Walker, after Dmitrii Levitskii, Sir Samuel Greig, mezzotint, published
November 1, 1788, 410 × 294 mm (paper), National Portrait Gallery, London.
© 2021 NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY.
3.6 Censer vase, 1770s, Matthew Boulton, fluorspar (Blue John), gilt-bronze,
31 cm, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. © THE STATE HERMITAGE
3.7 Plate from the “Frog” Service, 1773, Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, creamware
(Queen’s Ware), painted in enamels, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
© THE STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM / PHOTO LEONARD KHEIFETS,
ALEKSEY PAKHOMOV, SVETLANA SUETOVA, VLADIMIR TEREBENIN.
Renne
4.1 Sir Joshua Reynolds, The Infant Hercules Strangling Serpents, 1786, oil on
canvas, 303 × 297 cm, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. © THE STATE
HERMITAGE MUSEUM / PHOTO LEONARD KHEIFETS, ALEKSEY
PAKHOMOV, SVETLANA SUETOVA, VLADIMIR TEREBENIN.
4.2 James Walker, after Johann Baptist von Lampi the Elder, Portrait of
Prince G. A. Potemkin-Tauride, 1792, mezzotint, third state, 42.3 × 31.8 cm, State
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. © THE STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM
/ PHOTO LEONARD KHEIFETS, ALEKSEY PAKHOMOV, SVETLANA
SUETOVA, VLADIMIR TEREBENIN.
4.3 John Raphael Smith, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, A Snake in the Grass, stipple
engraving printed in brown on paper (sepia), 34.2 × 27 cm, State Hermitage
Museum, St Petersburg. © THE STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM / PHOTO
LEONARD KHEIFETS, ALEKSEY PAKHOMOV, SVETLANA SUETOVA,
VLADIMIR TEREBENIN.
4.4 Sir Joshua Reynolds, Cupid Untying the Zone of Venus, 1788, oil on canvas, 127.5 ×
101 cm, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. © THE STATE HERMITAGE
4.5 Sir Joshua Reynolds, The Continence of Scipio, 1789, oil on canvas, 239.5
× 165.5 cm, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. © THE STATE
HERMITAGE MUSEUM / PHOTO LEONARD KHEIFETS, ALEKSEY
PAKHOMOV, SVETLANA SUETOVA, VLADIMIR TEREBENIN.
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List of Illustrations xiii
Part II: The Agency of Gifts
Heath
5.1 Charles Turner, after Sir Thomas Lawrence, Charles Whitworth, 1st Earl
Whitworth, published by Colnaghi & Co., mezzotint, published December 1,
1814, 561 × 406 mm (plate), 607 × 444 mm (paper), National Portrait Gallery,
London. © 2019 NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY.
5.2 The Herschel telescope given to Catherine II in the Pulkovo observatory, 1930s,
photograph, reproduced in Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniia, Issue IV, ed.
P. Kulikovskii (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Fiziko-Matematicheskoi literatury, 1958),
279.
5.3 Benjamin Smith, after William Beechey, His most gracious Majesty King George
the third … Painted by Sr. Wm. Beechey R.A., 1804, etching and stipple, Wellcome
Library, London. WELLCOME COLLECTION / CREATIVE COMMONS
CC BY 4.0.
5.4 George Moutard Woodward, The Windsor astronomers, making observations
and calculations respecting the conjunction of the English and Russian comets,
1791, published by William Holland, hand-coloured etching, 448 × 342 mm,
The British Museum, London. © TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM,
LONDON.
5.5 The Female Philosopher, smelling out the Comet, 1790, hand-coloured etching,
published by R. Hawkins, The British Museum, London. © TRUSTEES OF THE
BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON.
5.6 Boris Sukhodolskii, Astronomy, c. 1754, oil on canvas, 210 × 100 cm, State
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. ALBUM / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO.
5.7 Johann Baptist von Lampi the Elder, Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna, 1795,
oil on canvas, 258 × 200 cm, Pavlovsk Palace Museum. IMAGE COURTESY OF
MARK TEDESCHI.
5.8 Sergei Shchedrin, View of Pavlovsk, early nineteenth century, watercolour,
Pavlovsk Palace Museum. IMAGE COURTESY OF MARK TEDESCHI.
5.9 James Sowerby, Strelitzia Reginae, 1787, watercolour, 30.5 × 44.1 cm, The Natural
History Museum, London. © THE TRUSTEES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY
MUSEUM / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO.
5.10 Frederick Nodder, after Sydney Parkinson, Phormium tenax, 1789 (1769), water-
colour on paper, The Natural History Museum, London. © THE TRUSTEES
OF THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM / LICENSED UNDER THE OPEN
GOVERNMENT LICENCE.
5.11 James Walker, after John Augustus Atkinson, Paul the First (Emperor of Russia),
published June 1, 1797, mezzotint, 703 × 498 mm, Royal Collection Trust. ROYAL
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xiv List of Illustrations
De Guitaut
6.1 Malachite urn, 1836, Peterhof Imperial Lapidary Works, malachite, gilt metal,
marble, 180 × 140 cm, The Royal Collection, Grand Reception Room, Windsor
Castle, England. ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST / © HER MAJESTY QUEEN
ELIZABETH II 2021.
6.2 Carl Timoleon von Neff, The Grand Duchesses Maria and Olga, daughters of
Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia, before October 15, 1840, oil on canvas, 153.3 ×
117.4 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London. ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST /
6.3 Imperial Presentation Vase, c. 1844. Imperial Porcelain Manufactory,
St Petersburg. Hard paste porcelain with gilt-bronze mounts, 142 × 108 ×
108 cm, The Royal Collection, State Dining Room, Windsor Castle. ROYAL
6.4 Plate (part of a dessert service), 1845, Coalport Porcelain Company, Shropshire,
porcelain, polychrome painting, gilded, 2.7 × 25.5 × 25.5 cm (diameter), Royal
Collection Trust, London. ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST / © HER MAJESTY
QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2021.
6.5 Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Queen Victoria with the Prince of Wales, 1846,
oil on canvas, 236.1 × 145.9 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London. ROYAL
6.6 Laurits Regner Tuxen, The Family of Queen Victoria in 1887, 1887, oil on canvas,
165.7 × 226.1 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London. ROYAL COLLECTION
TRUST / © HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2021.
6.7 Frame with a miniature of Maria Feodorovna, manufactured by Fabergé, Royal
6.8 Vase and Pedestal, 1872, Kolyvan Lapidary Factory, Ekaterinburg, korgon
porphyry (vase), green-grey porphyry (pedestal), 134.5 × 56.5 cm, Royal
6.9 Laurits Regner Tuxen, The Marriage of Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia, 26th
November 1894, 1895–96, oil on canvas, 169.4 × 139.9 cm, Royal Collection
Trust, London. ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST / © HER MAJESTY QUEEN
ELIZABETH II 2021.
6.10 Diamond Jubilee Brooch, 1897, manufactured by Fabergé, silver, rose gold, and
brilliant diamonds, sapphires, 9.8 × 3.4 × 1.8 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
2021.
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List of Illustrations xv
Sobolev
7.1 George Frederic Watts, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1903, bronze, Lincoln Cathedral.
WIKIMEDIA / PHOTOGRAPH TANYA DEDYUKINA / CREATIVE
COMMONS CC BY 3.0.
7.2 “Celebrities of the Day—Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate,” reproduced in
The Graphic, March 22, 1884.
7.3 “The Royal Banquet in the Saloon of the ‘Pembroke Castle’ at Copenhagen,”
reproduced in The Graphic, September 29, 1883.
7.4 Vassilka, 1907, Fabergé workshops, silver, aventurine quartz, 13.4 × 21.1 × 9 cm,
Royal Collection Trust, London. ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST / © HER
MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2021.
7.5 Alexandra, Princess of Wales, and her Borzoi Alex, c. 1890, photograph by
Thomas Fall, gelatin silver print, 11.9 × 18.1 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
2021.
7.6 Briton Rivière, Portrait of Audrey, Lady Tennyson with the wolfhound Karenina,
1899, oil on canvas, 150 × 122.4 cm, National Library of Australia. PUBLIC
DOMAIN / PHOTO NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA.
7.7 Tennyson’s Study at Farringford, by W. Biscombe Gardner, reproduced in
The English Illustrated Magazine 10 (1892), 149.
Coleman Sparke
8.1 Kovsh presented by Nicholas II to Victor Albert Spencer, Lord Churchill (front
view, with original holly wood fitted case), 1896, Fabergé, gold-mounted ruby,
diamond, and agate. IMAGE COURTESY OF BONHAMS.
8.2 Fabergé kovsh presented by Nicholas II to Victor Albert Spencer, Lord Churchill
(front view, detail), 1896, gold-mounted ruby, diamond, and agate. IMAGE
COURTESY OF BONHAMS.
8.3 Fabergé kovsh presented by Nicholas II to Victor Albert Spencer, Lord Churchill
(rear view, detail with inscription), 1896, gold-mounted ruby, diamond, and
agate. IMAGE COURTESY OF BONHAMS.
8.4 Fabergé invoice showing kovsh entry with price, 1896. IMAGE COURTESY OF
VALENTIN SKURLOV.
8.5 Cabinet record of imperial gifts listing a 335 rouble kovsh supplied for Lord
Churchill, 1896. IMAGES COURTESY OF VALENTIN SKURLOV.
8.6 The Honourable Victor Spencer, dressed in Page of Honour full dress uniform,
c. 1877, hand-coloured albumen print, 14.5 × 9.8 cm, Royal Collection Trust,
London. ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST / © HER MAJESTY QUEEN
ELIZABETH II 2021.
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xvi List of Illustrations
8.7 Left to right: The Duke of Marlborough, Viscount Churchill, Winston Churchill,
and Major Jack Churchill in an Oxfordshire Yeomanry encampment, unknown
photographer, c. 1915, reproduced in Bonhams Private Collections Auction,
October 3, 2018, 109. IMAGE COURTESY OF BONHAMS.
8.8 An Imperial Russian gilt-bronze table, the top with a lapidary relief bouquet,
Peterhof Imperial Lapidary Factory, 1844, hardstones, gilt-bronze, glass, 78.6 ×
8.9 A vase and pedestal purchased by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at the
Great Exhibition of 1851, c. 1850, Demidov Lapidary Factory, St Petersburg,
malachite and gilt-bronze, 220 × 100 × 79 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
2021.
8.10 A collection of hardstone animals, mainly by Fabergé, c. 1900, nephrite, jasper,
obsidian, rhodonite, aventurine, chalcedony, 3.7–15.8 cm, private collection.
IMAGE COURTESY OF BONHAMS.
Part III: Travels and Dialogues
Tetermazova
9.1 Gavriil Skorodumov, Self-Portrait (In the Cabinet of Engravings of the
Hermitage), after 1785, watercolour, Indian ink, quill, and graphite pencil on
paper, 65.5 × 46 cm, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg. © STATE RUSSIAN
MUSEUM, ST PETERSBURG.
9.2 Thomas Rowlandson, A Bench of Artists, 1776, ink and graphite on paper, sup-
port: 272 × 548 mm, Tate Britain, London. © TATE IMAGES.
9.3 Gavriil Skorodumov, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, Reflections on Clarissa Harlow,
1775, stipple engraving on paper, 35.3 × 29 cm (sheet), 32.9 × 26.6 cm (plate),
Royal Collection Trust, London. ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST / © HER
MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2021.
9.4 Gavriil Skorodumov, Count Sergei Petrovich Rumiantsev, 1781, colour stip-
ple on paper, 17.5 × 12.2 cm, State Historical Museum, Moscow. © STATE
HISTORICAL MUSEUM, MOSCOW.
9.5 Odalisque, Lucknow, India, c. 1810–20, gouache on paper, CBL In 69.19, Chester
Beatty Library, Dublin. © THE TRUSTEES OF THE CHESTER BEATTY
LIBRARY, DUBLIN.
9.6 Gavriil Skorodumov, after Fedor Rokotov, Catherine II, 1783–84, stipple
engraving and etching on silk, 44.5 × 33.5 cm, State Historical Museum,
Moscow. © STATE HISTORICAL MUSEUM, MOSCOW.
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List of Illustrations xvii
9.7 Gavriil Skorodumov, Self-Portrait, late 1780s–early 1790s, ink on paper, 21.6 ×
18.1 cm, Yaroslavl Art Museum, Yaroslavl. © YAROSLAVL ART MUSEUM.
9.8 James Walker, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, The Infant Hercules, 1792, mezzotint on
paper, 66 × 58 cm, State Historical Museum, Moscow. © STATE HISTORICAL
MUSEUM, MOSCOW.
9.9 James Walker, after Lemuel Francis Abbott, The Honourable Thomas Erskine,
1783, mezzotint on paper, 37.7 × 27.5 cm, The British Museum, London.
© TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON.
9.10 James Walker, after Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna of Russia, Catherine II,
c. 1789, mezzotint, 12.9 × 10.7 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London. ROYAL
9.11 James Walker, after Mikhail Shibanov, Catherine II (Empress of Russia),
mezzotint, published May 1, 1789, 39.9 × 29.2 cm (sheet), 39 × 28 cm (plate),
Royal Collection Trust, London. ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST /
Marisina
10.1 William Nicholson, Portrait of Sir William Allan (1782–1850). Artist. (In Circassian
dress), 1818, oil on canvas, 91.4 × 71.4 cm, Scottish National Portrait Gallery,
Edinburgh. © NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND.
10.2 George Henry Harlow, Portrait of Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1816, oil on panel,
53.2 × 41.6 cm, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. PHOTO BIRMINGHAM
MUSEUMS TRUST / CREATIVE COMMONS CC0.
10.3 Nicholas Pavlovich Romanov (Grand Duke). A General. From the series “Horses
and riders.” Signed and inscribed: “Edinburg” [sic], 1817, watercolour, ink, pen on
paper, State Archive of the Russian Federation (“GARF”), f. 728, op. 1, d. 1107,
l. 12. PHOTO STATE ARCHIVE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION.
10.4 William Allan, Bashkirs Conducting Convicts, 1814, oil on canvas, 43 × 63 cm,
State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. © THE STATE HERMITAGE
10.5 William Allan, Frontier Guards (Circassian Prince on Horseback Selling Two
Boys), 1814, oil on canvas, 43 × 63 cm, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
10.6 William Allan, The Abduction of a Circassian Woman (Haslan Gheray
Conducting Alkazia, Daughter of Mouradin Bey, Across the Kuban), 1815, oil
on wooden panel, 88 × 70 cm, The Museum of Fine Arts, Makhachkala,
Russia. © DAGHESTAN MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS NAMED AFTER P. S.
GAMZATOVA.
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xviii List of Illustrations
10.7 William Allan, Portrait of Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia, December 1816, pencil
on paper, 23 × 17.5 cm, private collection. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
10.8 Charles Theodosius Heath, after Frederick Mackenzie, Elgin Gallery, Views of
London and its Environs, 1825, etching, published by Hurst, Robinson & Co., The
British Museum, London. © THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM,
LONDON / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
10.9 A page from John Conrath’s autograph notebook with portrait sketches of
Nicholas (possibly by S. Hancock), his brother Mikhail (by Ch. Landseer),
and a member of Mikhail’s entourage (by W. Bewick), 1817–18, The British
Library, Department of Manuscripts, Add. MS 58207, 1815–35, ff. 29–32.
© THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.
Leigh
11.1 Grigorii Chernetsov, Perspective View of the War Gallery of 1812 in the Winter
Palace, 1829, oil on canvas, 121 × 92 cm, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
11.2 Joseph Nash, Windsor Castle. The Waterloo Chamber, June 5, 1844, 1844, waterco-
lour and bodycolour over pencil, 28.2 × 36.8 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
2021.
11.3 Fedor Rokotov, Portrait of Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich as a Child, begin-
ning of the 1780s, oil on canvas, State Historical Museum, Moscow. © STATE
HISTORICAL MUSEUM, MOSCOW.
11.4 Sir Godfrey Kneller, William, Duke of Gloucester (1689–1700), 1699, oil on canvas,
76 × 64 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London. ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST /
11.5 Sir Thomas Lawrence, Alexander I, Emperor of Russia (1777–1825), 1814–18,
oil on canvas, 273.8 × 179.5 cm, Waterloo Chamber, Windsor Castle. ROYAL
11.6 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in the Waterloo Chamber in
Windsor Castle, Berkshire, 2018. From left to right on the wall can be seen Sir
Thomas Lawrence’s portraits of Alexander I, Francis I, Emperor of Austria
(1818–19), and Frederick William III, King of Prussia (1814–18). © 2018,
PA IMAGES / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO / PHOTO HENRY NICHOLLS.
11.7 George Dawe, Alexander I, Emperor of Russia (1777–1825), after March 1826, oil
on engraving, lined on to canvas, 61.1 × 42.5 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
2021.
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List of Illustrations xix
11.8 George Dawe, Portrait of Emperor Alexander I, 1824, oil on canvas, 238.5 cm ×
152.3 cm, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. © THE STATE HERMITAGE
11.9 The Military Gallery at the Winter Palace, State Hermitage Museum,
St Petersburg. PHOTOGRAPH ALLISON LEIGH / CREATIVE COMMONS
CC0.
Part IV: Dynasties and Domesticities
Patterson
12.1 Charles Bergamasco, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, 1874, hand-coloured
albumen photographic print, 23.9 × 9.6 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
2021.
12.2 Adolphe Charlemagne, Prince Alfred driving at Oranienbaum, August 1862,
1862, pencil, pen and ink, watercolour, bodycolour heightened with gum
and with scraping out, 25 × 34.5 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
2021.
12.3 Gustav Karl Ludwig Richter, Maria Alexandrovna, Grand Duchess of Russia,
1873–74, oil on canvas, 145.8 × 94.7 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
2021.
12.4 Mary Thornycroft, Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh,
1876, marble, 66.5 cm (height), Royal Collection Trust, London. ROYAL
12.5 The Russian Chapel, Clarence House, photograph, Royal Collection Trust,
London. ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST / © HER MAJESTY QUEEN
ELIZABETH II 2021.
12.6 Nicholas Chevalier, The Marriage of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh,
23 January 1874, 1874–75, oil on canvas, 168.4 × 138.5 cm, Royal Collection
Trust, London. ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST / © HER MAJESTY QUEEN
ELIZABETH II 2021.
12.7 Nicholas Chevalier, The Anglican marriage service of Alfred, Duke of
Edinburgh and Maria Alexandrovna, 23 January 1874, 1874, pencil, pen and ink,
coloured pencil, watercolour, 20.4 × 25 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
2021.
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xx List of Illustrations
12.8 Nicholas Chevalier, The Orthodox marriage service of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh
and Maria Alexandrovna, 23 January 1874, 1874, pencil, pen and ink, waterco-
lour, bodycolour, with two flaps, 20.4 × 25 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
2021.
12.9 Nicholas Chevalier, The arrival of the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh at Windsor,
7 March 1874, 1874, pencil, pen and ink, watercolour and bodycolour, 24.4 ×
Slater
13.1 Sergei Levitskii, Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia, Alexandra Feodorovna, Empress
of Russia, and Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, 1896, gelatin silver print, 14.5 ×
13.2 Ernest Sandau, Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia and King George V, May 24, 1913,
gelatin silver print, 22.1 × 15.5 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London. ROYAL
13.3 Arthur William Debenham, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia (1868–1918) and
George, Prince of Wales, August 4, 1909, gelatin silver print, 23.9 × 17.2 cm, Royal
13.4 Boissonnas & Eggler, Grand Duchesses Maria (1899–1918), Tatiana (1897–1918),
Anastasia (1901–1918), and Olga (1895–1918) of Russia, 1914, platinum print,
12.6 × 9 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London. ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST / ©
HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2021.
13.5 Johann Victor Aarne, Frame with a photograph of Empress Alexandra
Feodorovna, before 1896, silver-gilt, guilloché enamel and four-colour gold,
ivory, 11 × 6.8 × 1.5 cm (whole object), Royal Collection Trust, London. ROYAL
13.6 Album of Queen Alexandra, State Visit to Russia, Reval, June 5–14, 1908,
gelatin silver prints, 28.1 × 36.8 × 5.5 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
2021.
13.7 Boissonnas & Eggler, Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia and his family, 1913,
gelatin silver print, 15.5 × 18.3 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London. ROYAL
13.8 Nikolai Bogdanov-Belskii, Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia, 1908, oil on canvas,
232.5 × 146.8 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London. ROYAL COLLECTION
TRUST / © HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2021.
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List of Illustrations xxi
13.9 Pavel Tikhomirov, Icon of Tsar Nicholas II, 1996, colour print on paper,
16 × 20 cm, author’s collection. PHOTOGRAPH © WENDY SLATER 2021.
13.10 Sergei Levitskii, Nicholas II dressed as Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, Romanov
anniversary ball, St Petersburg, 1903, photograph. IMAGE WIKIMEDIA /
CREATIVE COMMONS PUBLIC DOMAIN MARK 1.0.
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Notes on Contributors

is an independent researcher, author, and lecturer on Russian pre-Revolutionary
works of art. Previously, Cynthia ran the Russian Department for Christie’s
Inc. in New York and worked for Hillwood Estate, Museum, and Gardens in
Washington, DC, and The Alexander Palace Project for the World Monuments
Fund in St Petersburg. Her book Russian Decorative Arts was published in 2014
by the Antique Collectors’ Club.
Anthony Cross
is Professor Emeritus of Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge and
has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 1989. He was the founder of
the “Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia,” which recently celebrated
its fiftieth anniversary. Anglo-Russian cultural relations have been at the cen-
tre of his research and writing since the publication of his very first article in
1964. His book By the Banks of the Neva: Chapters from the Lives and Careers
of the British in Eighteenth-Century Russia (Cambridge University Press, 1997)
was awarded both the Alexander Nove Prize by the British Association for
Slavonic and East European Studies and the Antsiferov Prize by the Likhachev
Foundation in St Petersburg.
Caroline de Guitaut, LVO

is Deputy Surveyor of the King’s Works of Art at Royal Collection Trust. She was
co-curator of the 2018 exhibition “Russia, Royalty and the Romanovs” (with
Stephen Patterson), and author and joint editor of the accompanying cata-
logue. Her publications on Russian art include Fabergé in the Collection of Her
Majesty The Queen (forthcoming), Russia: Art, Royalty and the Romanovs (Royal
Collection Trust, 2018), “Fabergé and the Gold-making tradition in Russia,” in
Scythians and Early Eurasian Nomads (British Museum conference proceed-
ings, 2018), Royal Fabergé (2011), and Fabergé in the Royal Collection (2003).
Louise Hardiman
is an independent scholar specialising in Russian and Soviet art and the his-
tory of British-Russian cultural exchange. She has a Ph.D from the University
of Cambridge and is an Advisory Board member of the Cambridge Courtauld
Russian Art Centre. Her publications include: the co-edited volumes
Modernism and the Spiritual in Russian Art: New Perspectives (Open Book
Publishers, 2017) and “Abramtsevo and Its Legacies: Neo-National Art, Craft,
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Notes on Contributors xxiii
and Design,” Experiment/Eksperiment: A Journal of Russian Culture (Brill, 2019);

The Story of Synko-Filipko and other Russian Folk Tales (as translator) (2019) and
Why the Bear Has No Tail and other Russian Folk Tales (as editor) (2014). Current
book projects include a history of British interest in Russian art during the late
Victorian and Edwardian periods and a study of the Russian “Arts and Crafts”
movement focused on its links with the west.
Ekaterina Heath
has a Ph.D from the University of Sydney (2018), which examines the influ-
ence of Empress Maria Feodorovna on Pavlovsk Park over a period of fifty
years (1777–1828) and, in particular, the ways in which the empress used plants,
garden design, and art to promote her agenda at the Russian court. Heath’s
research interests include the history of botany, cultural meanings of plants
around the turn of nineteenth century, and European garden history. She has
presented her research at events including the ISECS Early Career Researchers
Seminar (Enlightenment and Peasant); the Sofia and David Nichol Smith
Seminar, Sydney and Brisbane; and the College Art Association (CAA). Heath
is a lecturer and course coordinator (Early Modern Art) at the University of
Sydney. She is researching a book on Russian chinoiserie in the eighteenth cen-
tury (co-written with Professor Jennifer Milam).
Allison Leigh
is Associate Professor of Art History and the SLEMCO/LEQSF Regents
Endowed Professor in Art & Architecture at the University of Louisiana at
Lafayette. She is a specialist in European and Russian art of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries and her first book, Picturing Russia’s Men: Masculinity
and Modernity in 19th-Century Painting was published by Bloomsbury in
2020. Dr Leigh has published on topics ranging from the cultural bilingualism
of Russian portraiture in the eighteenth century to the prescriptions for mas-
culine conduct among military officers in the 1840s. In 2021, she received an
ATLAS Grant (Awards to Louisiana Artists and Scholars) from the Louisiana
Board of Regents to complete a book project currently entitled The Art of
Misogyny: Toxic Masculinity from Delacroix to Picasso.
Irina Marisina
is Leading Researcher in the Department of Russian Art (1700–1917), Theory
and History of Arts Research Institute, Russian Academy of Arts, Moscow. She
has a Ph.D in History of Art from Moscow State University (1990) and is the
author of several publications on Russian art and culture of the eighteenth to
early nineteenth century, and the history of the Imperial Academy of Arts in
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xxiv Notes on Contributors
St Petersburg (1750s–1830s), including its evolution, artists, and international

relations with Europe and the Americas. She has also jointly edited several
essay collections on Russian art. Marisina has spoken at conferences in Russia
and the UK, as well as coordinating and participating in annual conferences
on Russian art at the Academy of Arts in Moscow.
Stephen Patterson
was Head of Collections Information Management, Royal Collection Trust until
December 2020. He was co-curator of the exhibition “Russia, Royalty and the
Romanovs” in 2018–19 and co-edited the accompanying catalogue. During his
thirty-three years in the Royal Household, Patterson researched Russian works
in the Royal Collection and published and lectured in Britain and Europe on
orders, decorations, and insignia; he is the author of Royal Insignia: British and
Foreign Orders of Chivalry from the Royal Collection (Merrell Holberton, 1996).
Elizaveta Renne
has been Keeper of British and Scandinavian Paintings (16th–20th centuries)
at the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg since 1980. She has a Ph.D
in History and Theory of Art from St Petersburg State University (2003). Her
publications include the State Hermitage Museum Catalogue. Sixteenth to
Nineteenth Century British Painting (Yale University Press, 2011) and Zhivopis′
skandinavskikh stran i Finlandii XIII–XX vekov: katalog kollektsii (State
Hermitage Museum, 2018). She has curated many Hermitage museum exhi-
bitions, including “Christina Robertson. A Scottish Portraitist at the Russian
Court” (Edinburgh, 1996), “British Treasures from the Hermitage Collection”
(New Haven, 1996), “400 years of Western European Painting,” and “Catherine
the Greatest” (Amsterdam, 2014–15).
Wendy Slater
studied Russian at the University of Cambridge, then completed an MA at
Manchester and a Ph.D at Cambridge in contemporary Russian history. She
has held academic appointments at Cambridge, the School of Slavonic and
East European Studies, University College London, and the University of
Manchester. She also writes about current developments in Russia for The
Annual Register, of which she is joint editor, and reviews for the Times Literary
Supplement. Her book, The Many Deaths of Tsar Nicholas II (Routledge, 2007),
explores narrative and visual representations of Russia’s last tsar in contem-
porary western and Russian culture. Her current projects include a history of
twentieth-century Russia in ten discrete narratives.
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Notes on Contributors xxv
Olga Sobolev
is Reader in Comparative Literature at the London School of Economics and
Political Science. Her research interests concern nineteenth- and twentieth-
century Russian and European culture. Recent publications include From
Orientalism to Cultural Capital: The Myth of Russia in British Literature of the
1920 (Peter Lang, 2017), “Reception of Alfred Tennyson in Russia,” in Reception
of Tennyson in Europe (Bloomsbury, 2016), “The Symbol of the Symbolists:
Alexander Blok in the Changing Russian Literary Canon,” in Twentieth-Century
Russian Poetry: Reinventing the Canon (Open Book Publishers, 2017), The Only
Hope of the World: G. B. Shaw and Russia (Peter Lang, 2012), and The Silver Mask:
Harlequinade in the Symbolist Poetry of Blok and Bely (Peter Lang, 2008).
Zalina Tetermazova
is Curator of Prints at the State Historical Museum, Moscow, specializing in
eighteenth-century Russian art and its international contexts. She is a graduate
of Lomonosov Moscow State University, where her Ph.D dissertation (2020)
examined the relationship between Russian portrait painting and printmaking
in the second half of the eighteenth century. Her other areas of research inter-
est include British art, Old Master prints and drawings, and the relationship
between word and image. Tetermazova writes and lectures on the history of
Russian and western European art.
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Conventions
This book adopts the Chicago Manual of Style and a modified form of the
Library of Congress transliteration system for rendering Cyrillic text in English.
It uses the spellings of proper names of members of the Russian court that are
known to English speakers, such as “Nicholas I” for Nikolai I, “Catherine the
Great” for Ekaterina II, and “Alexandra Feodorovna” for Aleksandra Fedorovna.
Following the usage adopted by Peter the Great in 1721 for Russian royal titles,
“Emperor” and “Empress” are mainly, though not exclusively, preferred to “Tsar”
and “Tsarina.” Anglicised spellings may also be used for Russian names if there
is an established English variant. For example, a soft sign or soft vowel may
not be reflected in the transliteration (Maria, Olga, etc.). The same principle
is applied to names of places (Moscow, Yaroslavl, etc.). Russian names appear
without patronymics, unless necessary to avoid confusion. Diacritics are omit-
ted in the main text, but unmodified Russian transliteration is maintained for
names, citations, and titles of publications in footnotes and image captions.
Titles of art works, books, catalogues, journals, and newspapers are italicised,
and their dates are included at first mention. Dates referring to events in Russia
which took place before January 1918 are given in the Old Style (Julian calen-
dar); subsequent dates conform to the Gregorian calendar. Foreign titles, e.g.,
of journals, are given in the source language with a translation at first mention,
and, unless the original title is well-known, are subsequently given in English.
Quotations in a foreign language are translated in the main text and the origi-
nal, if available, is given in a footnote. Unless otherwise stated, any translations
into English are by the author of the chapter in which they appear.
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Chapter 1
Introduction: Visual Culture and the History of

British-Russian Relations
Louise Hardiman
In 1562 a new map of Russia appeared in the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum pub-
lished by the Antwerp cartographer Abraham Ortelius (fig. 1.1). Based on draw-
ings by one of the first Englishmen to explore the territory, Anthony Jenkinson
(1529–1611), the map is one of the earliest objects of visual culture in the his-
tory of British-Russian relations.1 Tumbling across its centre, the haphazardly
arranged letters “RUSSIA” identify a vast area between the White and Caspian
seas that includes Muscovy (“Moscovia”), Novgorod (“Novogardia”), Vladimir
(“Volodomer”), and Vologda (fig. 1.2). To the south and east, mounted fight-
ers patrol the empty expanse of “Tartari,” the land of the Tatars. Where the
land meets the North Sea (“Mare Septentrionale”), crude red shapes clustered
around estuaries mark the presence of monasteries and churches, including the
culturally important sites of Solovki at the mouth of the River Onega and Kizhi
island in Lake Onega itself.2 At the top of the map, Tsar Ivan IV (“Ioannus”),
dressed in full regalia, sits, somewhat incongruously, by a bell-shaped tent.
Merely hinting at places and people, the markers of civilisation in Jenkinson’s
map are little more than geographical placeholders—vague signifiers of a
1 Jenkinson was granted permission by Tsar Ivan IV (“the Terrible”, r. 1533–84) to travel exten-
sively, and after his first trip in 1557 he returned several times. See “Anthony Jenkinson,”
and “A Voyage to Russia in 1557,” in Rude and Barbarous Kingdom: Russia in the Accounts of
Sixteenth-Century English Voyagers, ed. Lloyd E. Berry and Robert O. Crummey (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1968), 71; Early voyages and travels to Russia and Persia, by
Anthony Jenkinson and other Englishmen. With some account of the first intercourse of the
English with Russia and Central Asia by way of the Caspian Sea, ed. Edward Delmar Morgan
and Charles H. Coote (London: The Hakluyt Society, 1886). The map’s contents were based on
an earlier version by Jenkinson, which was thought lost until it was rediscovered in the 1980s
and donated to the Wrocław library. See Krystyna Szykuła, “Anthony Jenkinson’s unique
wall map of Russia (1562) and its influence on European cartography,” Belgeo. Révue Belge
de Géographie 3–4 (2008): 325–40, https://doi.org/10.4000/belgeo.8827; Krystyna Szykuła,
“Unexpected 16th Century Finding to Have Disappeared Just After Its Printing—Anthony
Jenkinson’s Map of Russia, 1562,” Intech Open, August 17, 2012, https://doi.org/10.5772/50224.
2 The presence of churches on Kizhi island is mentioned in sixteenth-century chronicles. See
“Kizhi Pogost,” UNESCO World Heritage List, https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/544, accessed
May 25, 2020.
© Brill Schöningh, 2023 | doi:10.30965/9783657793761_002 - 978-3-657-79376-1

2 Louise Hardiman
culture barely known or understood. Yet these primitive images are significant,
for they mark the beginning of a deeper cultural relationship between Britain
and Russia.3 Studies of visual material like this document can reveal much
about the history of British-Russian cross-cultural dialogue, yet art and mate-
rial culture have been far less often discussed in this context. There exists a firm
base in the historiography on British-Russian relations upon which to build,
from the pioneering work of Matthew S. Anderson to the prodigious and wide-
ranging scholarship of Anthony G. Cross over the past half-century.4 Following
in their footsteps, others have tackled such subjects as scientific exploits, histo-
ries of exploration, literature (notably, the translation and reception of Tolstoy,
Dostoevsky, Turgenev, and other “canonical” figures), music studies, and the
history of the revolutionary emigration.5 Yet, within this broader picture, the
literature on the visual arts is relatively scant, and has mainly concentrated
on specific topics (for example, the “anglophilia” of Catherine the Great in the
eighteenth century).6
3 It is assumed that earlier links between the states were few or non-existent, the only signifi-
cant point of connection being the marriage between Gytha of Wessex, daughter of Harold
Godwinson (King Harold) and Vladimir II (Vladimir Monomakh) [Volodymyr Monomakh],
Grand Prince of Kievan Rus [Kyivan Rus], in the eleventh century.
4 Matthew S. Anderson, Britain’s Discovery of Russia, 1553–1815 (London: Macmillan &
Co., 1958). The publications of Cross are too numerous to list here, but include: A People
Passing Rude: British Responses to Russian Culture, ed. Anthony Cross (Cambridge: Open
Book Publishers, 2012); Anthony Cross, ‘By the Banks of the Neva’: Chapters from the Lives
and Careers of the British in Eighteenth-Century Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997), https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511581816.010; Anthony G. Cross, By the Banks
of the Thames: Russians in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research
Partners, 1980); and Anthony Cross, In the Lands of the Romanovs: An Annotated Bibliography
of First-hand English-language Accounts of the Russian Empire (1613–1917) (Cambridge: Open
Book Publishers, 2014), https://www.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/OBP.0042.pdf.
Among others, the work of Inna Lubimenko, A. Lobanov-Rostovsky, and J. A. R. Marriott
can be mentioned. See, for example: Inna Lubimenko, “Anglo-Russian Relations during the
First English Revolution,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 11 (1928): 39–59; Inna
Lubimenko, “The Correspondence of Queen Elizabeth with the Russian Czars,” The American
Historical Review 19, no. 3 (April 1914): 525–42; A. Lobanov-Rostovsky, “Anglo-Russian
Relations through the Centuries,” The Russian Review 7, no. 2 (Spring 1948): 41–52; and J. A.
R. Marriott, Anglo-Russian Relations 1689–1943 (London: Methuen & Co., 1944).
5 Notable examples include: Russia in Britain, 1880–1940: From Melodrama to Modernism, ed.
Rebecca Beasley and Philip R. Bullock (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Rebecca
Beasley, Russomania: Russian Culture and the creation of British modernism, 1881–1922 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2020); Philip R. Bullock, Rosa Newmarch and Russian Music in Late
Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009).
6 See, for example: Isobel Rae, Charles Cameron: Architect to the Court of Russia (London: Elek
Books, 1971); Dmitry Shvidkovsky, The Empress and the Architect: British Architecture and
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Visual Culture and the History of British-Russian Relations 3
Courtly Gifts and Cultural Diplomacy is the first book to examine a wide
range of visual sources, art objects, and objects of material culture in order
to enrich and deepen these histories over a longer chronology. Recognising
that until the mid-nineteenth century British-Russian dialogue in the visual
arts occurred primarily in the state sphere, its principal aim is to investigate
associations between cross-cultural artistic dialogue, courtly gift-giving, and
cultural diplomacy. For it was in the exchange of gifts and construction of
political relations between the respective rulers of Britain and Russia that a
rich conversation in visual culture began to emerge and then make an impact
on the wider artistic scene in both countries. This process was not exclusive to
the courtly sphere, but its significance within that setting is such that a study
is long overdue.
The essays in this volume bring together recent research from a wide range
of experts working in academia and the public sphere, who include estab-
lished historians, early career academics, museum curators, and independent
scholars. This diversity recognises that groundbreaking research in the realm
of visual, and especially material culture studies is done both within and out-
side the academy. It allows for the application of a broad range of methodolo-
gies, including object-centred approaches and narrative histories. Indeed, the
collection draws inspiration from a landmark exhibition and catalogue publi-
cation produced by Royal Collection Trust in 2018—“Russia, Royalty and the
Romanovs.”7 Displays at The Queen’s Gallery in London and Holyrood Palace
in Edinburgh introduced around three hundred works from the British royal
art collection with a Russian connection. Several essays in Courtly Gifts and
Cultural Diplomacy build on information presented in the exhibition cata-
logue or use objects held in the Royal Collection in their analysis. Furthermore,
many of this volume’s authors develop research that they initially presented as
papers at the associated scholarly conference organised by Royal Collection
Trust and the Cambridge Courtauld Russian Art Centre in March 2019 (“Russia:
Courtly Gifts and Cultural Diplomacy”).
To explain briefly the book’s various contexts: here, the “state” refers to the
ruling families, their wider court circles, and their representatives in govern-
ment, including those involved in foreign and diplomatic affairs. Gift-giving as
a phenomenon requires no definition, but its meaning and import vary. For the
most part, approaches to interpretation have emphasised social and political
Gardens at the Court of Catherine the Great (London and New Haven: Yale University Press,
1996); and Anthony Cross, “Masters of the Arts,” in Cross, By the Banks of the Neva, 262.
7 Russia: Art, Royalty and the Romanovs, ed. Caroline de Guitaut and Stephen Patterson
(London: Royal Collection Trust, 2018), exhibition catalogue.
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4 Louise Hardiman
Figures 1.1, 1.2 Russiae, Moscoviae et Tartariae descriptio, from a manuscript by

Anthony Jenkinson, 1562, reproduced in Abraham Ortelius, Theatrum
Orbis Terrarum, English edition The Theatre of the Whole World
(London: John Norton, 1606). Oxford, Bodleian Library, BOD: Douce O
subt. 15. Creative Commons CC BY NC 4.0. IMAGES COURTESY OF
BODLEIAN LIBRARIES, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
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aspects, rather than attending to the objects as such;8 there are a number of
art-historical studies of gift-giving related to geographies other than Russia.9
Marcel Mauss’s much-cited anthropological study, “The Gift,” first published
in 1925, positions gift-giving and gift-exchange as means to foster group cohe-
sion and societal collaboration.10 However, the later interventions of Jean
Baudrillard and others have emphasised strategies of counter-giving and
refusal as power plays—a more productive framework for assessing gifts made
in diplomatic contexts, especially those between Britain and Russia, whose
political relations have often been marked by tension.11 Finally, the term “cul-
tural diplomacy” is used here mainly in its literal sense, to describe ways in
which culture and diplomacy intersect, rather than the more recent and nar-
rower usage that emphasises the use of culture for strategic ends (often called
“soft power”).12
Diplomacy aside, research on the history of British-Russian cultural
exchange in the visual arts has expanded over the past three decades, notably
through the work of Galina Andreeva, Rosalind P. Blakesley, Anthony G. Cross,
Louise Hardiman, Elizaveta Renne, Dmitry Shvidkovsky, Ekaterina Viazova, and
others.13 In other cases, as with Russia, Royalty and the Romanovs, publications
8 Recent literature includes, for example: Frank Adloff, Gifts of Cooperation, Mauss and
Pragmatism (London: Routledge, 2011); Harry Liebersohn, The Return of the Gift: European
History of a Global Idea (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Grégoire Mallard,
Gift Exchange: The Transnational History of a Political Idea (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2019).
9 See, for example: Felicity Heal, The Power of Gifts: Gift-exchange in Early Modern England
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); Cecily J. Hilsdale, Byzantine Art and Diplomacy in
an Age of Decline (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Mariah Proctor-Tiffany,
Medieval Art in Motion: The Inventory and Gift Giving of Queen Clémence de Hongrie
(University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 2019); Mediated by Gifts: Politics and
Society in Japan, 1350–1850, ed. Martha Chaiklin (Leiden: Brill, 2016).
10 Marcel Mauss, “Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés archa-
ïques,” L’Année sociologique (1923–24): 30–186, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27883721,
accessed July 3, 2020. For an English version, see Marcel Mauss, The Gift: The Form and
Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies, trans. W. D. Halls (London: Routledge, 1990).
11 Jean Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death, trans. Iain Hamilton Grant (London:
Sage, 1993).
12 See, for example, Patricia Goff, “Cultural Diplomacy,” Oxford Bibliographies. Oxford
University Press (2017), https://doi.org/10.1093/OBO/9780199743292-0202.
13 A non-exhaustive list of publications includes: Galina Andreeva, Geniuses of War, Weal and
Beauty—George Dawe R A Pinx (Moscow: Russian Committee of the International Council
of Museums, 2012); Anthony G. Cross, Engraved in the Memory: James Walker, Engraver to
the Empress Catherine the Great, and his Russian Anecdotes (London: Bloomsbury, 1993);
Louise Hardiman, “The Firebird’s Flight: Russian Arts and Crafts in Britain, 1870–1917”
(Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2015); Louise Hardiman,
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6 Louise Hardiman
associated with museum exhibitions have explored themes of courtly rela-

tions and artistic exchange, such as Nezabyvaemaia Rossiia: russkie i Rossiia
glazami Britantsev XVII–XIX vek (State Tretyakov Gallery, 1997) and Britannia
& Muscovy: English Silver at the Court of the Tsars (The Gilbert Collection,
London and the Yale Center for British Art, 2006). Yet, despite these excellent
initiatives, scholarship has, for the most part, either tackled narrowly defined
periods or concentrated on specific media or object types.14
The aim here is to survey a broader time frame, with a focus on object-based
study. As Valerie Kivelson and Joan Neuberger have discussed, much can be
gained by approaching Russian cultural history through sustained attention to
visual culture.15 Art, and later, photography and other modern informational
technologies bring new evidence to the fore and contribute to the develop-
ment of more nuanced histories (however, as with early maps, the veracity and
reliability of visual sources are another matter). In recognition of this, histori-
cal studies have lately benefited from both a “visual turn” alongside the recent
and equally prominent “global turn.”16 But the use of these approaches for
court studies and histories of diplomacy is relatively new.17 To quote Harriet
Rudolph: “Some examinations of certain objects in specific historical situations
“The ‘Martinoff Drawings’: A quest for Russian art at the South Kensington Museum,”
The Burlington Magazine (December 2018): 1006–15; Elizaveta Renne, “British artists in
Russia in the first half of the nineteenth century,” in British Art Treasures from Russian
Imperial Collections in the Hermitage, ed. Brian Allen and Larissa Dukelskaya (London
and New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 1996), 104, exhibition catalogue; Shvidkovsky,
The Empress and the Architect; Ekaterina Viazova, Gipnos anglomanii: Angliia i ‘angliiskoe’
v russkoi kul’tury rubezha XIX–XX vekov (Moscow: Gosudarstvennyi institut iskusstvoz-
naniia, 2009).
14 Caroline de Guitaut, Fabergé in the Royal Collection (London: Royal Collection Enterprises,
2003).
15 Picturing Russia: Explorations in Visual Culture, ed. Valerie Kivelson and Joan Neuberger
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006).
16 Paula Findlen, “Early Modern Things: Objects in Motion, 1500–1800,” in Early Modern
Things: Objects and Their Histories, 1500–1800, ed. Paula Findlen (London: Routledge,
2013), 1; Writing Material Culture History, ed. Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello (London:
Bloomsbury, 2012; second edition 2021); The Global Lives of Things: The Material Culture
of Connections in the Early Modern World, ed. Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello (London:
Routledge, 2015); The Agency of Things in Medieval and Early Modern Art: Materials,
Power and Manipulation, ed. Grażyna Jurkowlaniec, Ika Matyjaszkiewicz, and Zuzanna
Sarnecka.
17 See, for example, Margot Finn, “Material Turns in British History: 2. Corruption: Imperial
Power, Princely Politics and Gifts Gone Rogue,” Transactions of the Royal Historical
Society, 29 (2019): 1–25; Helen Jacobsen, Luxury and Power: The Material World of the
Stuart Diplomat, 1660–1714 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Moving Women,
Moving Objects (400–1500), ed. Tracy Chapman Hamilton and Mariah Proctor-Tiffany
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notwithstanding, the material culture of diplomacy has hitherto hardly played

an important role in historical research […].”18 Recent scholarship has began
to explore this.19 This volume, then, supplies the first historical survey of artis-
tic exchange and cultural diplomacy between the Russian and British states
through the lens of art and material culture.
A collection of essays can provide an overview of a subject without claim-
ing to be comprehensive; however, the goal here is to produce a whole that
is greater than the sum of the parts and which stimulates further research.
While its chronological scope spans the sixteenth and early twentieth cen-
turies, the content mainly focuses on relations between Romanov rulers and
the English—later British—monarchy during the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. Previous accounts of artistic diplomacy in the courtly sphere have
usually concentrated on the early modern period, and this is especially true of
Russian studies.20 There is recent literature on the Soviet period too.21 Building
a clearer picture of the historical landscape in between, each author engages
with new visual and material sources and/or employs fresh methodologies to
provide groundbreaking and novel perspectives. Connections between the
essays are numerous, and the thematic arrangement of the volume seeks to
facilitate the interweaving and layering of histories to create a more nuanced
picture.
(Brill: Leiden, 2019); Meredith Martin, “Mirror Reflections: Louis XIV, Phra Narai, and the
Material Culture of Kingship,” Art History 4, no. 3 (2015): 653–67.
18 Harriet Rudolph, “Entangled Objects and Hybrid Practices? Material Culture as a New
Approach to the History of Diplomacy,” European History Yearbook 17 (2016): 1–28.
19 A notable recent example is Global Gifts: The Material Culture of Diplomacy in Early
Modern Eurasia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), ed. Zoltán Biedermann,
Anne Gerritsen, and Giorgio Riello, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108233880.
20 See, for example: Jan Hennings, Russia and Courtly Europe: Ritual and the Culture of
Diplomacy, 1648–1725 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016); and Maija Jansson,
Art and Diplomacy: Seventeenth-century English Royal Decorated Letters to Russia and
the Far East. Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History vol. 244 (Brill: Leiden, 2012). For the
Anglo-Russian relationship more broadly see, among others: Anthony Cross, Peter the
Great through British Eyes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Simon Dixon,
et al., eds, Britain and Russia in the Age of Peter the Great: Historical Documents. SSEES
Occasional Papers No. 38 (London: School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 1998),
https://archive.org/details/SSEES0016, accessed April 5, 2021.
21 See, for example: Claire Knight, “Mrs Churchill Goes to Russia: The Wartime Gift Exchange
between Britain and the Soviet Union,” in Cross, A People Passing Rude, 253; Music, Art
and Diplomacy: East-West Cultural Interactions and the Cold War, ed. Simo Mikkonen and
Pekka Suutari (Oxford: Routledge, 2015).
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8 Louise Hardiman
A Brief History of British-Russian Cultural Relations
The chequered history of British-Russian relations begins with tales of peril at

sea in the mid-sixteenth century. Jenkinson’s expeditions, which took him as far
as Persia, followed those of Richard Chancellor, the first Englishman to reach
Russia. An aspiring seafarer in the Elizabethan age of “discovery,” Chancellor
ventured in search of the North-East Passage in 1553. This was unsuccessful,
but instead Chancellor reached the northern shores of the River Dvina, and,
at the invitation of Tsar Ivan IV, the travellers made the journey inland to the
citadel of Moscow.
Chancellor had set out with two ships, and, despite his failure to find the
sea route to the Far East, his name would be recorded for posterity as the first
Englishman to establish diplomatic relations with Muscovy. Yet the return
home was as calamitous for the English fleet as the outgoing mission—the ves-
sel on which Chancellor sailed back to London perished. But for the Russians
too, new relations had begun, for the one ship that successfully returned was
carrying the first Russian envoy to England, Osip Nepeia, who in turn attended
the court of Elizabeth I (fig. 1.3).22 These initial meetings led to the founding of
the Muscovy Company, which began a mutually beneficial trade arrangement
with Russia.23 Furthermore, they inaugurated the long tradition of embassies
from England to Russia and vice versa, and the “to and fro” of political, per-
sonal, and commercial dealings that has endured over the centuries since.
When the diplomatic relationship had been firmly set, Peter I (“the Great”)
was the first Russian tsar to make strengthening cultural relations with England
a strategic priority. In pursuit of his policy of developing Russia along western
lines, the tsar travelled abroad to gain knowledge, secure resources, and build
connections. During his “Grand Embassy” of 1697–98 to Europe, Peter became
the first Russian ruler to visit England. He spent three months in London, much
of which entailed learning about the shipbuilding industry. Yet these experi-
ences also established a firmer platform for artistic interchange, which began
gradually to flourish from this moment onwards. Peter invited English artisans
to the new city of St Petersburg, founded in 1703, and, in time, industries and
trade contributed to the establishment of a sizeable English expatriate com-
munity on the shores of the Neva River.24
22 Joseph von Hamel, England and Russia: Comprising the Voyages of John Tradescant the
Elder, Sir Hugh Willoughby, Richard Chancellor, Nelson, and others, to the White Sea, trans.
John Studdy Leigh, first published 1854 (London: Routledge, 2013), Chapter 7.
23 The exception was the period of interregnum, during which the ruling tsar, Alexei I, with-
drew privileges and expelled English tradesmen from Moscow.
24 See Cross, By the Banks of the Neva.
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Figure 1.3 “Ivan IV sends Osip Nepeia to England,” Nikon Chronicle, 16th century, reproduced
in Vologda v minuvshem tysiacheletii: Ocherki istorii goroda (Vologda: Drevnosti
Severa, 2004), 48.
WIKIMEDIA / CREATIVE COMMONS PUBLIC DOMAIN MARK 1.0
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10 Louise Hardiman
Among Peter’s successors, the reign of Catherine II (“the Great”) brought the
second and more significant advance in British-Russian cultural relations.
Catherine’s introduction of English garden design, acquisitions of English art
for a growing collection that would become that of the Hermitage, and com-
missions from British artists precipitated a new wave of interest in Britain
among the Russian elite. A prominent example of cultural transfer was the
arrival in St Petersburg of the Scottish architect, Charles Cameron, who, among
other projects, would build palaces in the neo-classical style for Catherine at
Tsarskoe Selo (fig. 1.4) and Pavlovsk.
However, the Catherinian period was marked by one of the first diplomatic
crises between Britain and Russia, as Ekaterina Heath explains in Chapter 5. In
1791, Russia seized the Ochakov fortress and refused to return it to the Ottoman
Empire, prompting the British Prime Minister, William Pitt, to consider military
action. Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 1783 foreshadowed
the “Great Game”—a British-Russian rivalry for control of the Near East and
Asia that began in the 1830s and would simmer for much of the nineteenth
century.25 The tensions over Ochakov were defused by the Russian Ambassador
in London, Count Semen Vorontsov, who successfully negotiated a new trade
agreement with the British in 1793 to replace the lapsed Anglo-Russian Trade
Treaty of 1734.26
In the artistic sphere, as Anthony Cross and Elizaveta Renne explain in
their respective chapters, diplomatic activities both shaped the empress’s
interests in English art and were influenced by them. With the emergence of
Revolutionary France, Russia and Britain found themselves on the same side,
with France their common enemy. Until then, French culture had played a
dominant role in shaping artistic taste in Russian elite society. Coupled with
Catherine’s anglophilia, this shift in perspective led to a heightened enthu-
siasm in Russia towards British artistic culture that would endure long after
her reign ended in 1796. On the diplomatic front, however, relations were dif-
ficult under Catherine’s heir and successor, Paul I.27 The tsar, who had been
25 For a recent scholarly account, see Gerald Morgan, Anglo-Russian Rivalry in Central
Asia 1810–1899 (Oxford: Routledge, 1981).
26 The Anglo-Russian Trade Treaty of 1734 had been renewed in 1766 on terms largely favour-
able to the Russians but had expired in 1786. See Matthew P. Romaniello, Enterprising
Empires: Russia and Britain in Eighteenth-Century Eurasia (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2019), 213. On British-Russian commercial relations in the Catherinian
era, also see Herbert H. Kaplan, Russian Overseas Commerce with Great Britain during the
Reign of Catherine II (Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society, 1995).
27 On British-Russian relations during the reign of Paul I, see Hugh Seton-Watson, The
Russian Empire 1801–1917. Oxford History of Modern Europe (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1967), 67–68.
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appointed Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller in 1799, was displeased by

the British seizure of Malta from France in 1800, for rather than return the
Knights to power, the island was made a British Protectorate. Turning away
from Britain, Paul gave support to France’s planned campaign against the
British in India, ordering twenty thousand Cossack troops to march to the
border; the plan lapsed after the tsar’s assassination in 1801. But, as Heath
discusses in her chapter, the disruptions to British-Russian trade during this
troubled period presented new challenges for British diplomacy.
The reigns of Alexander I and Nicholas I brought periods of conflict fol-
lowed by alliance. After the Anglo-Russian War of 1807–12, Britain and Russia
were again allies against France in the Napoleonic Wars. Alexander I’s success
against Napoleon gave the empire the status of a “great power,” elevating Russia’s
status in the international sphere. Projects such as the vast “Military Gallery” of
portraits for the Winter Palace, discussed by Allison Leigh in Chapter 11, dem-
onstrated the tsar’s desire to project the image of a powerful victor. Yet rather
than choose a Russian painter, as might be expected, the commission was given
to an English artist, George Dawe. Succeeding his elder brother Alexander in
1825, Nicholas I continued to develop cultural contacts with Britain. And, even
as he set out to build a programme of national art, founding new institutions
and commissioning public buildings, the tsar applied a combination of wester-
nising and locally driven policies. But if Nicholas I had begun to explore British
art at various stages of his life, as Irina Marisina explores in Chapter 10, his
counterpart, Queen Victoria, was less interested in Russia. The royal visit of
Nicholas I to England in 1844 to build relations had little impact on the queen’s
hesitant attitude.
As Caroline de Guitaut notes in Chapter 6, the second half of the nineteenth
century again saw the relationship between the two imperial powers oscillate
between hostility and alliance, but, in matters of culture, this was a period
when Russian interest in Britain began to be reciprocated by the Victorians.
At the Great Exhibition of 1851, the Russian imperial court was keen to demon-
strate to a western audience Russia’s aspiration to be a modern and culturally
sophisticated nation. In the arts, this was achieved through an abundant and
awe-inspiring showcase of decorative art extolling the country’s rich natural
resources. The most prominent exhibits were furniture and objets d’art made
from hardstones such as jasper and malachite, whose British reception Cynthia
Coleman Sparke discusses in Chapter 8. However, by 1853, the countries would
be at war in the Crimean Peninsula, and Russia’s defeat in 1856 had lingering
repercussions. The Great Game continued to persist in the ensuing decades, as
Russia attempted to flex its muscles in the east, causing Britain to fear for its
hold over British India.
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12 Louise Hardiman
Despite all these tensions, dynastic ties between the British and Russian
monarchies were forged in 1874 with the royal wedding of Maria Alexandrovna,
daughter of Alexander II, and Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. Queen Victoria had
reservations about the pairing, as Stephen Patterson attests in his account of
the marriage in Chapter 12, but the union undoubtedly created opportunities
for increased diplomatic gift-giving and artistic exchange. Upon the accession
of Nicholas II, some twenty years after the wedding, a Russian state visit to
Britain was organised; later, in 1909, the tsar visited Cowes and Osborne on the
Isle of Wight. Such meetings as these would not be reciprocated by a British
monarch for almost a century, when Queen Elizabeth II visited Moscow and
St Petersburg in 1994.
From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, Britain provided refuge at the
opposite end of Europe for revolutionary exiles and other opponents of tsar-
ism, owing in part to its tolerance for immigration. As Rebecca Beasley has
written, the presence of Russian radicals served to catalyse interest in Russian
culture during the late Victorian period, above all, in literature.28 Notably,
Sergei “Stepniak” Kravchinskii and Feliks Volkhovskii set up the Russian Free
Press Fund and the associated publication Free Russia, a journal that aimed
to elicit support for anti-tsarist causes. The “Society of Friends of Russian
Freedom” became a forum not only for the supporters of radicalism but a
hub for intellectual interest in Russian cultural history. Alongside this there
developed an emerging passion for Russia among the elite, as witnessed by
the success of Peter Carl Fabergé’s London store, which opened in 1903, and
the performances of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes at Covent Garden from
1909.29 The rise of interest in Russia continued up to 1917, when Britain, France,
and Russia ended the Triple Entente of 1907 under which they had allied to
fight Germany and its allies in World War I.30 The end of the War saw the
rupture of British-Russian diplomatic relations, along with those of trade,
when another cataclysmic event occurred—the overthrow of tsarist rule and
assumption of power by the Bolshevik revolutionary government as a result of
28 Rebecca Beasley, Russomania, 40–60.

29 On Fabergé in London, see Kieran McCarthy, Fabergé in London: The British Branch of
the Imperial Russian Goldsmith (London: ACC Art Books, 2017), and Fabergé: Romance to
Revolution, ed. Hanne Faurby and Kieran McCarthy (London: V & A Publications, 2021),
exhibition catalogue. On Diaghilev in London, see Cyril W. Beaumont, The Diaghilev
Ballet in London: a personal record (London: Putnam, 1945), and Lynn Garafola, Diaghilev’s
Ballets Russes (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 300–29.
30 On political relations between Britain and Russia in the late imperial period, see Keith
Neilson, Britain and the Last Tsar: British Policy and Russia, 1894–1917 (Oxford: Oxford
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the Russian Revolution. After the murder of Nicholas II and his family in the
spring of 1918 drew a brutal close to the imperial era, courtly relations were
abruptly curtailed, even if some diplomatic engagement between Bolshevik
Russia and Britain continued during the unsettled period of the Civil War. The
next chapter of cultural relations would begin only after the first Anglo-Soviet
trade agreement was signed in 1921.
Courtly Gifts and Cultural Diplomacy
This book is organised thematically in four sections. The first, “Art and
Diplomacy,” situates the collection within the framework of artistic and cul-
tural diplomacy, beginning with the early exposure of Russian art and material
culture to that of England and then charting how, between the early modern
era and the age of Catherine the Great, British-Russian diplomatic relations
increasingly influenced those in the cultural sphere. In the first three chapters,
the role of diplomatic envoys as a conduit for state commissions and the trans-
fer of artistic traditions is emphasised as much as the works of art that their
activities produce. Louise Hardiman explores inaugural Anglo-Russian artis-
tic encounters through the lens of diplomatic court painting, focusing on two
portraits by the German painter, Sir Godfrey Kneller, who settled in England
in 1676: first, that of the Russian envoy to Europe, Petr Potemkin, painted in
1682, and second, that of Peter the Great, painted in 1698. Dating from almost a
century before the foundation of the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1757, the two
works predate the adoption of a western model for artistic training in Russia;
to date, most of the scholarship on Russia’s exposure to the west in cultural
exchange to date has focused on the late eighteenth century onwards. Kneller’s
portraits capture a seminal moment—a shift in the imagery of the court which
enabled Peter I in turn to utilise painting for his own ends and position himself
as part of the European monarchy. Although, as Hardiman explains, the paint-
ing of Peter remained in London, prints reproducing the image were dissemi-
nated in the Russian Empire and across Europe. In this way, the agency of the
image extended beyond its diplomatic purpose and influenced the develop-
ment of leader imagery and the portrait genre in Petrine Russia.
The following two chapters address the rising phenomenon of anglomania
associated with the reign of Catherine the Great, each emphasising the ways
in which English diplomacy influenced shifts in Russian taste and fostered
new avenues for artistic exchange. Anthony Cross discusses the embassy of
Charles, 9th Lord Cathcart, to the court of Catherine, and the amicable rela-
tionship that developed between the empress, the ambassador, and his wife
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14 Louise Hardiman
Figure 1.4 Charles Cameron, Design for a Staircase in the Cold Baths at Tsarskoe Selo,
early 1780s, pen, brush, indian ink, and watercolour on paper, 62 × 45 cm, State
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
ALEKSEY PAKHOMOV, SVETLANA SUETOVA, VLADIMIR TEREBENIN
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Jane, Lady Cathcart during the years 1768–72. Building upon earlier accounts
of the empress’s love of English culture from art and architecture to garden-
ing and theatre, Cross’s essay proffers a theory that Catherine’s interests were
due as much to the actions of the English in Russia as to the empress’s own
self-education. In particular, the diplomat Cathcart and his wife shaped and
enabled Catherine’s taste for English decorative art and played a key role in
mediating lucrative imperial commissions for such makers as Josiah Wedgwood
and Matthew Boulton. His foregrounding of Jane Cathcart’s activity illustrates
the operation of diplomatic power in gatherings social as well as formal and
reveals the importance of analysing the finer details of relationships and wider
court networks to build more nuanced histories. Thus, Cross’s privileging of
English motives casts new light on a history that is usually framed as a tale of
Catherine’s cultural sophistication.
By contrast, Elizaveta Renne repositions cultural agency with the empress,
revisiting the debate as to how Catherine actively used the arts as a tool of
diplomacy and political communication. In her quest to obtain works by con-
temporary artists to develop a fulsome art collection and bolster the nation’s
cultural credentials (an endeavour in which she was supported by her lover
and confidante, Grigorii Potemkin), Catherine commissioned a work by the
English painter Joshua Reynolds. This was achieved through the mediation
of Lord Carysfort, an Englishman active in court and diplomatic circles in St
Petersburg. Given free rein to choose the subject, Reynolds produced The Infant
Hercules Strangling the Serpents (1786) for the empress and The Continence
of Scipio (1789) for Potemkin, as well as a repetition of one of the artist’s
most famous works, a Nymph and Cupid (1784). Renne’s account emphasises
Carysfort’s attention to Catherine’s use of art for the ‘masculine’ ends of power,
inverting prevailing gender norms in ways which are picked up by Ekaterina
Heath and Zalina Tetermazova in later chapters of this volume.
The next section, “The Agency of Gifts,” examines practices of imperial
gift-giving in four chapters that adopt the methodology of the case study. This
allows for an exploration of the nature and agency of courtly gifts exchanged
between Romanov rulers and the British monarchy and wider court circles, as
well as new investigations into the history of Russian material culture. The case
studies illustrate how the agency of gifts facilitates their use in a wide-ranging
spectrum of diplomatic purposes, whether as a means to convey hard political
messages or as tools to foster familial relations in the domestic sphere. Here,
the ability of gifts to shift the dynamics of power relations is vividly revealed. In
her essay, Heath tackles questions of gift suitability and the subtle nuances of
the messages conveyed by specific choices of object. She discusses three types
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16 Louise Hardiman
of diplomatic gift presented by the British Ambassador, Charles Whitworth, to

the Russian court during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries—a
Herschel telescope, a shipment of live plants, and six horses bred for military
use. For Heath, the expansion in the range and sophistication of royal gifts
offered at the cusp of the nineteenth century was prompted by the need for
Britain to secure new trade agreements with Russia. Using gift-giving to aug-
ment existing histories of the complex cultural and political dialogues between
Britain and Russia during the Catherinian and Pauline eras, Heath argues that
British diplomats flattered the empress and reflected her interest in fields less
open to women by choosing a scientific instrument—the telescope—as gift.
However, she avers, Catherine sought to invert the dynamic by treating this
as her own purchase. Heath thus reinforces the interpretations of Cross and
Renne, revealing more ways in which the intricacies of diplomacy jostled with
an assertive campaign of state building.
Broader contexts of royal giving are examined by Caroline de Guitaut, who
assesses the significance of imperial gifts from four ruling tsars (Nicholas I,
Alexander II, Alexander III, and Nicholas II) to Queen Victoria over the course
of the nineteenth century. Exploring luxury objects in the Royal Collection,
including malachite vases, imperial porcelain, and portraits, De Guitaut illus-
trates how such gifts were symbolic of imperial taste and patronage and con-
siders the motives behind each offering—for example, whether they resulted
from personal intervention by the tsar or were merely selected as appropriate
for the recipient within a strict hierarchy. As such, her essay highlights the dif-
ficulties of untangling the private and public spheres in British-Russian state
cultural relations. The chapter ends poignantly, discussing a gift of Fabergé
jewellery from Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna to Queen Victoria and
Prince Albert on the occasion of their Diamond Jubilee, and revealing how its
carefully chosen design could communicate familial emotion and strengthen
dynastic bonds.
An alternative perspective is provided by Olga Sobolev, whose wide-ranging
case study discusses Alexander III’s choice of a Siberian wolfhound (borzoi)
as a gift for Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate, in 1884. The dog, which
Tennyson named Karenina, developed such a close relationship with the poet
that it appears at his side in a famed bronze statue by George Frederic Watts
(1903; grounds of Lincoln Cathedral, fig. 7.1). Sobolev examines the public
and personal controversies caused by the gift against the backdrop of poli-
tics, specifically, the Great Eastern Crisis (1884–85), when Russian troops were
approaching British India and the press was waging an intense anti-Russian
campaign. She debates how the gift might have shaped British opinion,
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particularly among the cultural elite. Finally, Sobolev situates the gift within a
longer history of animals given as state gifts by the Russians.
If, by the end of the nineteenth century, animals featured less often as
courtly gifts, the decorative arts came into their own. Cynthia Coleman Sparke
adopts an object-centred approach to explore the fin-de-siècle taste for luxury
gifts of hardstone. Her case study is the magnificent Fabergé kovsh in agate
presented by Nicholas II to an English courtier during the tsar’s state visit in
1896. Using newly available archival sources, Coleman Sparke elucidates the
circumstances of the gift and assesses how these fit into the longer history of
Russian courtly gift-giving. Central to her analysis is the rise of hardstone as a
favoured medium. This wide-ranging discussion moves from matters of pur-
pose and protocol to material culture histories, casting new light on Fabergé’s
frequent use of Russian hardstone and, more broadly, on the production and
consumption of Russian decorative art in the late imperial period.
The third section, “Travels and Dialogues,” returns to histories of British-
Russian artistic dialogue in the courtly sphere from the late eighteenth century
onwards, with an emphasis on those British artists who spent time in Russia,
and their Russian counterparts who worked in Britain. Zalina Tetermazova’s
chapter explores the rise of interest in English art under Catherine through the
careers of two celebrated printmakers—the Russian, Gavriil Skorodumov, and
the Englishman, James Walker—both of whom benefited from royal patronage
and time abroad. Skorodumov studied in London, where he learned stipple
engraving, while Walker came to St Petersburg at the empress’s behest to take
up the role of “Engraver to Her Imperial Majesty.” Their careers are emblematic
of dialogues in artistic education and currents of transnational influence dur-
ing this period, as well as the role of imperial patronage in shaping taste. But,
as Tetermazova explains, exposure to the latest artistic practices in England
gained Skorodumov no favours with the empress. Drawn to the sentimental
fashion, the artist was galvanised to create superlative works in stipple, but
such an education was no use for a court artist whose output had to further
Catherine’s political aims. This reading echoes earlier chapters emphasising
the empress’s use of art for powerful ends.
Catherine’s conspicuous anglophilia was undoubtedly reflected in the
artistic tastes of her successors, and Nicholas I continued to engage with
Europe even as he rebuilt Russia around the policy of “Orthodoxy, Autocracy,
Nationality” [Pravoslavie, samoderzhavie, narodnost’]. In Chapter 10, Irina
Marisina describes a little-known period in the tsar’s formative years—an
extended visit to Britain that testifies to his interest in British art, provid-
ing new insights in understanding his attitudes toward cultural policy. She
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18 Louise Hardiman
compares the respective fates of two painters, William Allan and Benjamin
Robert Haydon, whom the tsar encountered during his trip. Allan had trav-
elled in Circassia and other imperial regions, and subsequently received sev-
eral commissions of paintings from the tsar; Haydon was involved in dialogue
between the British Museum and the Academy of Arts in St Petersburg. The
chapter provides new evidence of Nicholas’s links with British art and of the
promising opportunities that the Russian capital offered for British artists.
The essay by Allison Leigh focuses on the famed Military Gallery in the
Winter Palace, comprising some three hundred portraits of military men who
served in the war against Napoleon in 1812. In a major example of continued
Russian patronage of British art during the nineteenth century, Alexander I
commissioned the works from Dawe, who, Leigh notes, had been “creeping
and prowling” around the tsar in hope of the appointment, and then moved
to St Petersburg. Augmenting previous histories which emphasise the gal-
lery’s political purposes, Leigh adopts the perspective of gender to argue
that its effect was to codify certain normative assertions about masculinity.
She contends that the gallery proposed ideals of masculine behaviour that
were derived from the British cultural context, thereby challenging prevail-
ing notions of male power in nineteenth-century Russia. In this way, gender
prescriptions could be transmitted between Britain and Russia. Her essay thus
raises broader questions as to ways in which the nature and display of power
can be linked with cultural exchange.
The concluding section, “Dynasties and Domesticities,” engages with the
unique circumstances for cultural exchange created by the dynastic ties forged
between Britain and Russia in the late Victorian period. Stephen Patterson’s
account of the wedding in 1874 of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, second son of
Queen Victoria, and Maria Alexandrovna, daughter of Alexander II, adroitly
weaves domestic concerns, art patronage, and simmering diplomatic tensions.
Extant objects in the Royal Collection bear witness to the artistic legacy of this
event, the highlight of which are the commemorative works commissioned
by the queen from the painter Nicholas Chevalier. Drawing from untouched
sources in the Royal Archives, Patterson provides new insights into the com-
mission, and explores the political dynamics of the union. He notes, however,
that the dynastic link thereby created between the two nations had little impact
on their future relations. Indeed, after the Revolution, the marriage treaty was
voided by the Russian government. Nor was the Duchess of Edinburgh fully
accepted within the British monarchy; after her husband’s death, she spent her
later life as an exile.
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In the book’s closing chapter, Wendy Slater explores cross-cultural and dip-
lomatic impacts of royal photography during the reign of Nicholas II. She dis-
cusses the significance of the exceptionally large and wide-ranging corpus of
images of the last tsar that were produced during his lifetime and then reused
in multiple ways after his death. Slater argues that although the Russian tsar
and British king, related by blood, shared aspects of their visual culture, images
of Nicholas enabled illusory beliefs about the Russian monarchy to circulate in
both countries in the twilight years of Romanov rule and beyond. Her discus-
sion ends with the 1917–2017 centenary social media project, #Romanovs100,
illustrating one of the ways in which British-Russian cultural dialogue has
endured in the twenty-first century.
The rise of new media has tended to elide national boundaries and cre-
ate opportunities for exchange and engagement. However, after a long spell
of positive relations in matters of cultural diplomacy between Britain and
Russia, this book goes to press at a time of heightened political and cultural
tensions. It is hoped that, despite this turn of events, this book will catalyse
fresh research and creative approaches to the history of British-Russian rela-
tions, such as those presented by revised global and imperial histories, and
the burgeoning field of digital humanities. The aim remains to foster mutual
understanding in a century portent with transnational risks no less perilous
than those experienced by the first explorers, envoys, and cartographers who
made their arduous journeys by ship, carriage, and sledge.
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24 Louise Hardiman
Table 1.1 Russian and British dynasties and key events from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries
Rulers of Russia Rulers of England Chronology of

and Britain British-Russian Relations
Ivan IV (the “Terrible”) 1533–84 Mary I 1553–581553: English explorer Richard

Chancellor “discovers” Russia.
Philip 1554–58 1553–54: The first Russian
embassy to England is made by
Osip Nepeia.
1555: Formation of the
Muscovy Company.
Elizabeth I 1558–1603 1562: Anthony Jenkinson’s
Map of Muscovy is published.
Feodor I 1584–98
Irina Godunova 1598
Boris Godunov c. 1585–1605 James I 1603–25

Time of Troubles
Boris Godunov (as tsar) 1598–1605
Feodor II 1605
False Dmitrii I 1605–06
Vasily IV 1606–10
Feodor Mstislavskii 1610–12
Dmitrii Troubetskoi 1612–13
The Romanov Dynasty

Mikhail Romanov 1613–45 Charles I 1625–49
Alexei I 1645–76
Oliver 1653–58 1653: In protest at the execu-
Cromwell tion of Charles I,
Tsar Alexei expels English
traders from Muscovy.
Richard 1658–59
Cromwell
Charles II 1660–85
Feodor III 1676–82
Ivan V 1682–96
Peter I (“Peter the 1682–1725
Great”) James II 1685–88
Mary II 1689–94
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Table 1.1 Russian and British dynasties and key events (cont.)

William III 1689–1702 1697–98: Peter I’s “Grand

(William of Embassy” to Europe, during
Orange) which he spent three months
Anne 1702–07 in London.
(as queen 1707–14
of Britain)
George I 1714–27
Catherine I 1725–27
Peter II 1727–30 George II 1727–60
Anna Ioannovna 1730–40
Anna Leopoldovna 1740–41 1740–48: Allies during the War
Ivan VI 1740–41 of the Austrian Succession.
Elizabeth 1741–61 George III 1760–1820 1756–63: Seven Years’
War; Russia and Britain are
Peter III 1761–62 opposed.
Catherine II 1762–96 1788: Russia seizes the
(“Catherine the Ochakov fortress, prompting a
Great”) diplomatic crisis with Britain.
Paul I 1796–1801 1801: Indian March of Paul—
Russia and France plan to
occupy British dominions in
India, but this fails due to the
tsar’s assassination.
Alexander I 1801–25 1807–12: The Anglo-Russian
War.
Early 1800s: Russia and Britain
are allied against Napoleon.
1814: Tsar Alexander I visits
Britain.
1816–17: Grand Duke
Nicholas (the future tsar) visits
London and Edinburgh.
George IV 1820–30
Nicholas I 1825–55 William IV 1830–37
Victoria 1837–1901 1844: Tsar Nicholas I visits
Britain.
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26 Louise Hardiman
Table 1.1 Russian and British dynasties and key events (cont.)

1851: Russia participates in

the Great Exhibition.
Alexander II 1855–81 1853–56: The Crimean War.
1874: The Wedding of Alfred,
Duke of Edinburgh and Maria
Alexandrovna of Russia.
Alexander III 1881–94
Nicholas II 1894–1917
Edward VII 1901–10 1907: The Anglo-Russian
Convention is signed.
The Triple Entente is agreed
between Russia, Britain, and
France.
George V 1910–36 1914–18: World War I. Russia,
Great Britain, and France are
allies.
February 1917: “February
Revolution.”
March 1917: Abdication of
Nicholas II.
October 1917: “October
Revolution:” The Bolsheviks
overthrow the Provisional
Government.
1918: Nicholas II and his
family are murdered in
Ekaterinburg after several
months under house arrest,
bringing imperial rule and the
Romanov era to an end.
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Part I
Art and Diplomacy
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Chapter 2
Art and Acculturation: Sir Godfrey Kneller’s Portraits

of Petr Potemkin (1682) and Peter the Great (1698)
Louise Hardiman
By the mid-seventeenth century the practice of ambassadorial visits between

Russia and England was well established, and knowledge of Russia gained over
the first century of state and commercial relations had begun to leave a cultural
legacy in English literature and theatre. William Shakespeare’s Russian scene
in Love’s Labour’s Lost (1598) is thought to have been inspired by the London
embassy of Fedor Pisemskii in 1581 that aimed to broker a marriage between
Tsar Ivan IV and Lady Mary Hastings;1 the words “approach thou like the
Russian bear” in Macbeth cast a stereotype now deeply ingrained.2 But there
are far fewer examples of Anglo-Russian dialogue in art and visual culture.
The main instances of this were the material gifts carried over vast distances
by envoys and their entourages in support of the first ambassadorial visits.
Reports testify to their variety and opulence: furs; brocades; silks; art objects
in gold, silver, and other precious materials; mechanical objects; and animals
such as tigers and horses. Each side aimed to reveal their power and resources
through their bounty. Today, extensive collections of such gifts in the Kremlin
Museum and State Hermitage Museum in Moscow and the Royal Collection
in London bear witness to these ritual exchanges of the early modern period.3
I wish to thank Lydia Hamlett and Elizaveta Renne for their feedback on earlier drafts of this
chapter.
1 William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost, ed. H. R. Woudhuysen (Arden Shakespeare Third
Series) (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1998), 5.2, https://doi.org/10.5040/97814081
60251.00000021. On the diplomatic context, see Linda Shenk, “Elizabeth I and the Politics
of Invoking Russia in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost,” in Queens Matter in Early Modern
Studies, ed. Anna Riehl Bertolet (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 247. Lady Mary was the
daughter of Francis Hastings, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon.
2 William Shakespeare, Macbeth, ed. Kenneth Muir (Arden Shakespeare Second Series)
(London: Methuen & Co., 1951), 3.4, https://doi.org/10.5040/9781408160244.00000006.
Olga Dmitrieva, “The Golden Chain of Traffic: The First Hundred Years of Anglo-Russian
Relations,” in Britannia & Muscovy: English Silver at the Court of the Tsars, ed. Olga Dmitrieva
and Natalya Abramova (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 12 (26–27), exhibition
catalogue.
3 See Dmitrieva and Abramova, Britannia & Muscovy, and Nezabyvaemaia Rossiia: russkie
i Rossiia glazami Britantsev XVII–XIX vek, ed. Galina Andreeva (Moscow: Trilistnik, 1997),
exhibition catalogue.

30 Louise Hardiman
Figure 2.1
Isaac Beckett, after Sir Godfrey Kneller,
A Self-portrait of Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1895,
mezzotint, 36.6 × 27.8 cm (sheet), Royal
Collection Trust, London.
ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST / © HER
MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2021
Although the decorative arts and material culture were well represented in this
initial phase of gift-giving, the fine arts had no currency. The first instances
of diplomatic paintings in the courtly sphere are therefore especially signifi-
cant. This chapter traces the history of two portraits with Russian sitters that
were painted by the leading court portraitist of the Stuart era, Sir Godfrey
Kneller (1646–1723) (fig. 2.1). The first, a three-quarters portrait of the diplo-
mat, Count Petr Ivanovich Potemkin (1617–1700, State Hermitage Museum;
fig. 2.2), was made when Potemkin visited England as ambassador for Tsar
Feodor III in 1681–82. The second, a striking full-length portrait of Tsar Peter I
(“the Great”) (1698, The Queen’s Gallery, Kensington Palace, London; fig. 2.5),
was painted by Kneller during the tsar’s three-month stay in London during his
“Grand Embassy” to western Europe in 1697–98.
The two portraits not only serve as visual records of early Anglo-Russian
diplomacy, but also invite questions as to state relations between England and
Russia at a time when Russian rulers were seeking to strengthen their links
with the west and vice versa. Taken together, they signal a new dynamism in
the emerging dialogue of Anglo-Russian artistic exchange. That both are by
Kneller reminds us that he was the most prolific portraitist at the seventeenth-
century English court; however, the English school of portraiture was still in
its early stages of development. Kneller, German by birth, settled in England
in 1676, six years before the Potemkin portrait was made. He joined a school
of court portraiture being forged by other continental painters in London,
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Sir Godfrey Kneller’s Portraits 31
Figure 2.2 Godfrey Kneller, Portrait of Petr Potemkin, 1682, oil on canvas, 135 × 103.5 cm, State
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32 Louise Hardiman
such as Hans Holbein the Younger and Anthony van Dyck.4 Choosing to stay in
England for the rest of his life, Kneller would gain lasting prestige after serving
as court painter to four different monarchs.
Painted around sixteen years apart, the two works discussed here reflect
very different stages of Kneller’s involvement in courtly portraiture: one under
the patronage of King Charles II and the other under King William III. After
re-examining the histories of the portraits, the chapter considers some ways in
which the iconography of Kneller’s works would continue to endure in Russia
right up to the late imperial period.
The Ambassador’s Portrait: Count Petr Potemkin
For the Russians, the main reason why painting initially played no role in dip-
lomatic encounters was the fact that easel painting was virtually non-existent
at this time. For the English, who already had an established tradition of
this kind of art, such portraits were often made for documentary purposes.
A surviving portrait of Grigorii Mikulin, ambassador from Tsar Ivan IV (“the
Terrible”) to the court of Elizabeth I, fits this type. Painted by an unknown art-
ist, it was probably made during Mikulin’s embassy of 1600–01.5 More likely a
private commission than a court piece or diplomatic gift, it came to a Russian
state museum only in the early nineteenth century, after its acquisition by the
consul general to Genoa, I. V. Smirnov.6 Its existence means that Kneller’s por-
trait of Potemkin of 1682 was not the first image of a Russian diplomat to be
made in England, but it can nevertheless be counted as one of the earliest of
such portraits.
Likewise, the full history of the Potemkin portrait is unclear, and the work has
received scant attention from historians of Kneller’s oeuvre. J. Douglas Stewart
omitted it from the catalogue of works in his monograph of 1983, which might
4 Born Gottfried Kniller in the German town of Lübeck, Kneller was active in England from
1676 until his death in 1723. Often described as the “greatest master of the Baroque por-
trait,” Kneller was court painter to four sovereigns. See, for example, “Sir Godfrey Kneller.
A painter of vast conceit. c.1648–1723,” http://www.twickenham-museum.org.uk/detail.
php?aid=35&cid=11&ctid=1, accessed July 4, 2020.
5 Portrait of G. I. Mikulin, c. 1600, oil on wood, 51 × 35 cm, State Historical Museum, Moscow.
Notably, the museum describes this work as “the earliest image of a Russian person made
from life that has survived till our time.” See https://nav.shm.ru/en/exhibits/1731/, accessed
June 16, 2020, and Dmitrieva, “The Golden Chain of Traffic,” 30.
6 Dmitrieva, “The Golden Chain of Traffic,” 30. Purchased in 1842, the work later became part
of the collection of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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cast a shadow over the attribution.7 This was despite a brief mention of the
work in an earlier biography by Lord Killanin, an account which Stewart criti-
cised for some inaccuracies.8 Moreover, there are two extant engravings dating
from the early eighteenth century, one by Robert White (fig. 2.7) and the other
by Abraham Blooteling.9 There has been more interest in the portrait in Russia.
Svetlana Moiseeva discusses it in a recent monograph on early Russian por-
traits, and, more recently, a detailed article by Pobedinskaia and Sapunov has,
among other things, explored the question of provenance.10 The present con-
sensus is that attribution is not in doubt; Pobedinskaia and Sapunov sought
opinions from scholars in Russia and the west (including Stewart, who agreed
with their conclusion on authorship).11
Less clear is whether the portrait was commissioned by the ambassador him-
self or the English court. Perhaps suggestive of the ambassador’s involvement
is the fact that, earlier in the embassy, a very similar depiction of Potemkin
was painted by the Spanish court painter Juan Carreño de Miranda, while
the Russian was visiting the court of King Charles II of Spain (r. 1670–1700)
(The Russian Ambassador Piotr Ivanowitz Potemkin (c. 1681), Museo Nacional
del Prado, Madrid) (fig. 2.3). As Carreño’s painting remained in the Spanish
royal collection, it seems likely that it was made for the receiving court. Could
this have persuaded Potemkin to engage a London painter to create another
portrait during his travels? In both works, heavy emphasis is placed on the
ceremonial dress of the sitter, with Potemkin’s luxurious, bejewelled kaftan
drawing the eye. His typical boyar murmolka, a high cap with flat crown and fur
lapels, is set with a diamond agrafe, signalling his senior status. The attention
to such signs of rank lends the portraits an official tone. In Kneller’s portrait,
this is augmented by the rendering of the sitter’s corpulent physique, convey-
ing an assertive, dominant presence and signalling the power of the diplomat.
In both works, but more so in the portrait by Kneller, the portrayal flatters
7 John Douglas Stewart, Sir Godfrey Kneller and the English Baroque Portrait (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1983).
8 Lord Killanin, Sir Godfrey Kneller and His Times, 1646–1723 (London: B. T. Batsford, 1948).
9 There is a second engraving of the portrait by Abraham Blooteling. For an illustration,
see Rovinskii, Materialy dlia Russkoi ikonografy, 5: 5, no. 187. Also see Dmitrii A. Rovinskii,
Podrobnyi slovar’ russkikh gravirovannykh portretov, 4 vols (St Petersburg: Tip.
Imperatorskoi Akademii nauk, 1886–89), 2: cols. 1560–61.
10 Svetlana V. Moiseeva, Russkie kistiu sovremennikov: Portretnaia zhivopis’ kontsa XVI veka–
pervoi poloviny XVIII veka v sobraniakh Evropy i Rossii (St Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin,
2017), 22–26; A. G. Pobedinskaia and B. V. Sapunov, “Posol’stvo P. I. Potemkina 1680–1682
godov i ego portret 1682 goda,” in U istokov russkoi kul’tury XII–XVII veka: Sbornik statei,
ed. B. V. Sapunov (St Petersburg: Gosudarstvennyi Ermitazh, 1995), 111.
11 Pobedinskaia and Sapunov, “Posol’stvo P. I. Potemkina,” 122–23.
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34 Louise Hardiman
Figure 2.3
Juan Carreño de Miranda, Pyotr Ivanovich
Potyomkin, c. 1681, oil on canvas, 207.2
× 122.8 cm, Museo Nacional del Prado,
Madrid.
© MUSEO NACIONAL DEL PRADO,
MADRID
Potemkin, an effect enhanced by a point of view pitched low enough to give a

touch of condescension to his gaze. On the face of it, then, Kneller’s approach
could perhaps suggest a request from the sitter for a more dignified portrait
emulating the earlier commission.
Yet, while it is tempting to speculate that the ambassador, astute and ambi-
tious, had made the arrangement, it seems more likely to have been a com-
mission from the English king, Charles II. It was painted soon after Kneller’s
appointment as court portraitist in 1680; he had gained the king’s favour by
painting his portrait three years earlier, after an introduction from the Duke
of Monmouth.12 It was not unusual for envoys, who were guests of the court,
to sit for a portrait. That same winter, Kneller painted the Moroccan ambas-
sador, Kaid Mohammed ben Hadu (fig. 2.4). (The ambassador’s mount and the
12 Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England: With Some Account of the Principal
Artists; and Incidental Notes on Other Arts, 3 vols (London: J. Dodsley, 1782), 2: 590.
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Figure 2.4
Godfrey Kneller, Jan Wyck, The Moroccan
Ambassador, Kaid Mohammed ben
Hadu, 1684, oil on canvas, 313 × 231 cm,
Chiswick House, London.
© HISTORIC ENGLAND ARCHIVE
landscape are attributed to Jan Wyck.13) And, to the extent that both composi-
tions follow local conventions in the genre, whether the equestrian portrait or
the three-quarters, these two ambassador portraits seem to be—as would be
expected—fashioned for a European audience. The depiction of the Russian
ambassador is more sober, notwithstanding his opulent dress. The simple
monochrome background evokes Dutch precedent; it is thought that Kneller
studied with Rembrandt and Ferdinand Bol.14
The portrait of Ben Hadu remained in England, but the movements of the
Potemkin portrait are less clear. Part of the uncertainty over commissioning
and provenance stems from the fact that, unlike Kneller’s portrait of Peter the
13 Listed in an inventory at Chiswick House, c. 1740, as “Morocco Ambassdour, Sr G and old

Wyke.” Cited by B. Ellis, in “Antiquities from the Foundation Collection of the Ashmolean
Museum,” reprinted in Tradescant’s Rarities: Essays on the Foundation of the Ashmolean
Museum 1683, with a Catalogue of the Surviving Early Collections, ed. Arthur MacGregor
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 144.
14 Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilder-
essen, 3 vols (Amsterdam, 1718–21; revised edition, The Hague: J. Swart, C. Boucquet,
and M. Gaillard, 1753), 3: 233. Some doubt has been cast on Kneller’s relationship with
Rembrandt. See Piet Bakker, “Godfrey Kneller,” in The Leiden Collection Catalogue, ed.
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr, https://www.theleidencollection.com/artists/godfrey-kneller/,
accessed April 28, 2020.
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36 Louise Hardiman
Great, the work is not in the Royal Collection but in Russia. Further confu-
sion is caused by the existence of two versions, one in the Hermitage Museum,
and another in the Armoury of the Moscow Kremlin. Until Pobedinskaia and
Sapunov investigated, it had been thought that the former was a copy of the
latter; now, the Hermitage painting is considered the original work.
The later history of this portrait is well established, for by the eighteenth
century it was in the collection of Prince Grigorii Potemkin.15 Then, upon the
prince’s death in 1791, it was transferred to Catherine the Great’s Hermitage,
along with other works previously held at the Tauride Palace in St Petersburg.16
What happened in between its creation and this point remains unclear. It is
possible, as Pobedinskaia and Sapunov argue, that the painting returned to
Russia with the ambassador and came into the hands of Grigorii Potemkin via
the family.17 But the younger Potemkin was a distant relation, rather than a
direct descendant, and no evidence has emerged to support this theory. More
convincing is the suggestion of Elizaveta Renne that the portrait remained in
England and was given as a diplomatic gift to the prince in the late eighteenth
century.18 This hypothesis is based on an entry for a portrait by Kneller in an
auction catalogue of the Collection of the Right Honourable Edward, Earl of
Oxford in 1741–42, which refers to “Potemking, Embassador [sic] from the Czar
of Muscovy in 1682.”19 According to George Redford, this painting was bought
by Lady Cossons for £13 5s 5d.20 But exactly how Cossons acquired it, or how it
then reached Russia, has yet to be discovered.
It is perhaps surprising that the portrait was not given as a gift at the time
of its making, for the political situation of the early 1680s suggests various
motives for a gift to Potemkin from Charles II. Early Anglo-Russian diplomatic
relations had set the pattern for embassies to be highly ritualised ceremonies
15 On Grigorii Potemkin’s patronage of English art, see Chapter 4 of this volume.

16 State Hermitage Museum Online Catalogue, no. ГЭ-10584, https://www.hermitagemu-
seum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/explore/artworks/?lng=en, accessed June 16, 2020. See
also Elizaveta Renne, Gosudarstvennyi Ermitazh. Britanskaia zhivopis’ XVI–XIX vekov.
Katalog kollektsii (St Petersburg: State Hermitage Museum, 2011), 144–46, no. 83.
17 Pobedinskaia and Sapunov, “Posol’stvo P. I. Potemkina,” 123.
18 Renne, Gosudarstvennyi Ermitazh, 146.
19 Christopher Cock and George Vertue, A catalogue of the collection of the Right Honourable
Edward Earl of Oxford deceas’d ..: which will be sold by auction, by Mr. Cock, at his house in
the great piazza, Covent-Garden, on Monday the 8th of March, 1741–2, and the five follow-
ing days (London: Mr. Cock, 1742), 17 (no. 32), https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=gri.
ark:/13960/t6737rp5s&view=2up&seq=1, accessed July 9, 2021.
20 George Redford, Art Sales. A History of Sales of Pictures and Other Works of Art …, 2 vols
(London: The “Whitefriars” Press, 1888), 1: 30, https://archive.org/details/artsaleshistory-
o01redf/mode/2up, accessed July 9, 2021.
- 978-3-657-79376-1
accompanied by lavish gift-giving.21 For example, when James I’s ambassa-

dor, Thomas Smith, travelled to Russia in 1604, an English-made coach was
given to Boris Godunov. But the mid-seventeenth century was an eventful
period in Anglo-Russian diplomatic and cultural relations, and, by the time of
Potemkin’s visit, the relationship was strained. The execution of Charles I and
period of Interregnum (1649–60) had prompted a suspension of the existing
trading arrangement. The future Charles II wrote to Tsar Alexei from France
and petitioned for the removal of trading privileges for the republicans, but the
tsar had already acted to expel English merchants then resident in Moscow.22
While the Russians continued communication with Charles II in exile, the tsar
nevertheless received Cromwell’s ambassador, William Prideaux, in Moscow
in 1655.23 After the monarchy was restored in 1658, the re-establishment of
trade took high priority among Charles II’s foreign policy goals. An envoy was
sent to Moscow to announce the accession and ask for a loan. The tsar obliged
and was repaid by the English in 1662, during the first return embassy of the
Russians—that of Petr Prozorovskii, Ivan Zheliabuzhskii, and Ivan Davydov.
A later embassy to Russia made by the Earl of Carlisle in 1663–64 was less
successful.24 Both sides were thus keen that Potemkin’s visit might secure a
renewal of the lapsed trade agreement.
Charles II received Potemkin on November 24, 1681, and the diplomatic
guests remained in London until early spring.25 For the Russians, the princi-
pal purpose of the embassy was to announce the death of Tsar Alexei and to
seek support for a campaign in Poland. But Alexei’s successor, Feodor III, was
ill suited to meet English hopes for progress. Aged fifteen, his rule depended
upon the support of an established group of nobles, among whom sixty-five-
year-old Potemkin was a senior figure. Lindsey Hughes describes Feodor as a
“weak, interim ruler […], pious and cultured, but too enfeebled by illness to
exert himself against his advisors.”26 English diplomatic strategy thus needed
to pay closer attention to Feodor’s court circle than to the tsar himself. His
21 On early Anglo-Russian diplomatic encounters, see Jan Hennings, Russia and Courtly
Europe: Ritual and the Culture of Diplomacy, 1648–1725 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2016).
22 Matthew P. Romaniello, Enterprising Empires: Russia and Britain in Eighteenth-Century
Eurasia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 37–38.
23 Hennings, Russia and Courtly Europe, 122–23.
24 Ibid., 139–40. On gift-giving associated with these two embassies, see Jan Hennings, “The
failed gift: Ceremony and gift-giving in Anglo-Russian relations (1662–1664),” in Practices
of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World c. 1410–1800, ed. Tracey A. Sowerby and Jan
Hennings (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315186375.
25 Pobedinskaia and Sapunov, “Posol’stvo P. I. Potemkina,” 120.
26 Lindsey Hughes, The Romanovs: Ruling Russia 1613–1917 (London: Bloomsbury, 2009), 45.
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38 Louise Hardiman
ambassador was an experienced statesman, who previously had led military

campaigns. Potemkin had prior diplomatic experience in the west too, as
ambassador for Alexei in 1668—on that occasion he had visited France and
Spain but not England.
Given all this, one might have expected Potemkin’s portrait to have been
a “departure gift” from the king, as historian Maija Jansson terms it: “a gift
from the host ruler in recognition of the part [the diplomat] had played in
negotiations.”27 Yet such a claim is speculative, and other gifts could have
served this purpose too. As it was, the ambassador’s departure from England
was marked with fulsome expressions of royal goodwill. Couched in character-
istically florid language, decorated letters of April 12, 1682 sent with the return
entourage convey the king’s desire for amity:
To the most High most Potent and most Illustrious Our most Deare Brother the
great Lord Czar […] sendeth greeting, and wisheth all happinesse and prosper-
ity. Most Potent and Our most Deare and Loving Brother, Having in our Letters
delivered to your Imperial Majesties late Ambassador Peter Ivanowick Potemkin
expressed Our earnest desire to entertaine an inviolable and Everlasting
Friendship with Your Imperiall Majestie and to render the same usefull to both
our Crownes and People […].28
The Russian embassy returned to Moscow in early August. By the time they
arrived, Feodor III, aged twenty-one, had died. His siblings, Peter and Ivan,
acceded as minors, and Ivan’s elder sister Sophia ruled as regent until Peter
came of age in 1689. Five years later, Peter I—later known as “the Great”—
would become sole ruler.
The Ruler’s Portrait: Tsar Peter the Great
By the time Kneller painted his second courtly portrait of a Russian, that of
Peter, made during the tsar’s Grand Embassy of 1897–98, his position was well
established as court portraitist to William III. Yet, as with the Potemkin por-
trait, the history of the commission has received conflicting interpretations.
The work remains in the Royal Collection and recent accounts have suggested
27 Maija Jansson, “Ambassadorial Gifts,” in Dmitrieva and Abramova, Britannia & Muscovy,
204.
28 Maija Jansson, Art and Diplomacy: Seventeenth-century English Decorated Royal Letters to
Russia and the Far East (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 252.
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that the portrait was a gift from Peter to the King.29 Rosalind Blakesley, for
example, writes that after sitting for the portrait Peter “presented the result
to King William III of England just before his return home.”30 And Royal
Collection Trust’s catalogue description of the work begins: “This portrait was
painted as a gift to William III.”31
Sources for the gift theory are not always provided, but it may be account-
able to ambiguities arising from previous accounts. For example, Anthony
Cross cites a report dating from 1698 by the “resident of the United Republics,
‘L’Hermitage’ [René Saunière de l’Hermitage, a French diplomat and Dutch
agent resident in London],” which states that “The Tsar was to be painted and
the portrait was to be a gift for the king.”32 Yet, in an early account of Kneller’s
work, Horace Walpole wrote that the portrait was commissioned by the
English king.33 And a claim was made in the early twentieth-century journal
Starye gody [Bygone Years] that “Queen Mary” had secured a portrait of Peter I
on his first visit to England in 1697.34 The theory that this was a commission
by English royalty is convincingly supported by an inscription on the painting
itself (fig. 2.6). Barely visible in reproductions, a close examination of the lower
right section of the portrait reveals several lines in Latin painted on the golden
wall under the window:
Petrus Alexeewitz. Magnus Dominus.

Tzar Et Magnus Dux Moscoviae
Jussu Britanniae Majestatis Godfridus Kneller Eques
ad vivum Pinxit, 1698.
29 Caroline de Guitaut and Stephen Patterson, Russia: Art, Royalty and the Romanovs
(London: Royal Collection Trust, 2018), 12, exhibition catalogue.
30 Rosalind P. Blakesley, Russia and the Arts: The Age of Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky (London: The
National Portrait Gallery, 2016), 19, exhibition catalogue.
31 De Guitaut and Patterson, Russia: Art, Royalty, 12.
32 The report was dated February 22, 1698. See V. A. Kordt, “Doneseniia Lermitazha o prebyva-
nii Petra Velikogo v Londone v 1698,” in V. A. Kordt, Otchet o zaniatiakh v Gosudarstvennom
arkhive v Gaage letom 1911 (St Petersburg, 1914), 10, 11, 13, cited in Anthony G. Cross, “Did
Peter sit for Kneller at Utrecht in 1697?” Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia
Newsletter, no. 26 (1998): 32.
33 Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting, 283–84.
34 M. V. Shchavinskii, “Petr Velikii v profil’,” Starye gody (February 1914) [cited as
M. W. Stchavinsky, “The Profile of Peter the Great”] in A. B., “Russian Periodicals,” The
Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 25, no. 135 (June 1914): 199–202 (200).
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40 Louise Hardiman
Figure 2.5 Godfrey Kneller, Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, 1698, oil on canvas,
241.7 × 145.6 cm, The Queen’s Gallery, Kensington Palace, London.
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Figure 2.6
Godfrey Kneller, Peter the Great,
Tsar of Russia, 1698, detail, oil
on canvas, 241.7 × 145.6 cm, The
Queen’s Gallery, Kensington
Palace, London.
ROYAL COLLECTION
TRUST / © HER MAJESTY
QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2021
This, which translates as “Peter Alekseevich. Great Master / Tsar and Grand
Duke of Muscovy / By order of the British Majesty / Sir Godfrey Kneller painted
from life,” throws the notion of a gift into doubt. Indeed, on the face of it, it
seems unlikely that Kneller, as court painter, would have fulfilled a commis-
sion from the visiting tsar. A gift could perhaps be explained if the king had
ordered the painting for Peter, but the tsar had refused and, in effect, re-gifted
the work to the English court; in her chapter in this volume, Ekaterina Heath
suggests that Catherine the Great had on occasion employed such a strate-
gy.35 If Peter had sought to overturn such hierarchies, this would perhaps fit
with those assessments of his character which have cast him as calculating
and insensitive to local norms; descriptions of his visit to England invariably
mention on the one hand, Peter’s strategy of luring skilled labourers and arti-
sans to work in Russia, and, on the other, the trail of destruction left at the
house of the famed London writer John Evelyn, where the tsar and his entou-
rage stayed.36 But the notion that Peter might have manipulated the gift-giving
35 See Chapter 5 of this volume.

36 See, for example, Arthur MacGregor, “The Tsar in England: Peter the Great’s Visit to
London in 1698,” The Seventeenth Century 19, no. 1 (2004): 116–47, http://doi.org/10.1080/0
268117X.2004.10555538.
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42 Louise Hardiman
process is speculative, and those biographers who have discussed Peter’s artis-
tic interests, such as James Cracraft and Lindsey Hughes, make no claims that
he arranged this sitting.37
The other area of uncertainty concerns timing, for Russian scholars Dmitrii
Rovinskii, A. A. Vasilchikov, and, more recently, Serge Ernst, claim that Peter
sat for Kneller for sketches in Utrecht in the autumn of 1897, before he reached
London at the beginning of 1698.38 This is disputed by Anthony Cross, for
whom “it is well attested that King William III asked Peter to sit for Sir Godfrey
Kneller in London at the end of January 1698.”39 The claims of the Russians
are based on the presence of Dutch engravings dated 1697 by Peter Schenk the
Elder and Pieter Stephens van Gunst of a head and shoulders portrait resem-
bling that of the larger oil. This, it is asserted, must have been drawn from an
earlier sketch by Kneller. Cross argues convincingly that the date of 1897 was
simply an error, as it was corrected to 1698 in later editions.
Beyond such debates, the portrait stands out as the first westernised por-
trayal of a Russian monarch, and for its acknowledgment of Peter’s interests in
Russia’s scientific advancement.40 The artifice of a window frame on the wall,
37 James Cracraft, The Revolution of Peter the Great (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2006), 91; James Cracraft, The Petrine Revolution in Russian Imagery (Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 1997); Lindsey Hughes, Russia in the Age of Peter the Great (New
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), 19.
38 Aleksandr A. Vasil’chikov, O portretakh Petra Velikogo, issledovanie A. A. Vasil’chikova
(Moscow: Tip. V. Got’e, 1872), 25; Rovinskii, Materialy dlia Russkoi ikonografy, 12 vols
(St Petersburg: Ekspeditsiia zagotovleniia gosudarstvennykh bumag, 1884–91), 3: 4–5,
cat. no. 100, and Rovinskii, Podrobnyi slovar’ russkikh gravirovannykh portretov, 3: col.
1537; Serge Ernst, “Portraits by Kneller in Russia,” The Burlington Magazine 107, no. 749
(Western Art in the U.S.S.R.) (August 1965): 424–26. The date of Peter’s arrival in England
is affirmed by historians. See, for example, Anthony Cross, St Petersburg and the British
(London: Frances Lincoln, 2008), 2.
39 Cross, “Did Peter sit for Kneller …?” 32.
40 However, it is possible that Kneller’s was not the only painting of Peter made during
the visit. Since this chapter was written, another portrait has emerged that is thought
to date from the time of the Grand Embassy. The work, auctioned by Bonhams London
in December 2021, is described as “Portrait of Tsar Peter the Great as the Grand Czar of
Muscovy, c. 1698, oil on canvas, 22.5 × 19.8cm.” It is thought possibly to be a work that was
sold by Christie’s London on July 17, 1807 (lot 28), described as “Czar Peter by Rembrandt”
[the attribution to Rembrandt was not claimed for the present work]. Bonhams’ technical
and provenance analysis date the painting to the time of the Grand Embassy, not least as
it bears comparison with engravings by William Faithorne and others of a portrait that
departed from the Kneller work. Calling the work an “unofficial image,” they note that the
tsar is here depicted in a more Russian style of dress. If their assessments of authenticity
are correct, this would be an interesting hybrid of the approach taken in the two Kneller
paintings discussed in this chapter: a portrayal of Peter that was more exoticised than
westernised. See The Russian Sale: 1 December 2021 (London: Bonhams, 2021), lot 1, auction
catalogue, https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/26797/lot/1/, accessed January 14, 2022.
- 978-3-657-79376-1
through which a naval scene can be seen, references ships and shipbuilding
as key interests of the tsar during his visit to London. The well-documented
physical facts of Peter’s taller-than-average height and reputedly small head
are captured too; the choice of facial expression portrays the tsar as a young
visionary. Clad in armour, Peter appears according to the conventions of the
western military portrait, in an obvious departure from the traditional kaf-
tan favoured by his predecessors—the type of court dress which Potemkin
had worn. His regalia reflect those of an English king: the crown, resting in
an alcove, is in the western style, and his robe is of ermine. In short, Kneller
depicted the tsar as a western monarch.41
Afterlives: The Later Histories of the Portraits
Despite their English origins, both the depiction of Potemkin as Muscovite

boyar and Peter as European monarch came to have lasting significance in
Russian cultural history. Firstly, the Kneller portraits gained a currency through
reproductions, principally oil copies and engravings. As mentioned above, the
original Potemkin portrait eventually came to the Hermitage Museum.42 Yet
it was considered sufficiently important that at some point an accurate oil on
canvas copy was made by an unknown artist (probably in the Kremlin work-
shops, given that the copy ended up in the state armoury).43 Could this have
been made at the time of the Kneller work, and then brought to Russia? Might
it have been used in training court artists? In the late seventeenth century, a
secular portrait tradition in Russian art barely existed. Rather, portraiture con-
sisted of a hybrid form known as the parsuna, painted in tempera on wood,
which drew on the Orthodox icon painting tradition—artists had little regard
for capturing the likeness of the sitter. But from the Petrine era onwards, mem-
bers of the court and nobility began to seek to promote their status through
portraiture and from then on, a new “western” style of Russian portraiture
began to develop.44
41 On portraits of Peter, see Lindsey Hughes, “Images of Greatness: Portraits of Peter I,” in
Peter the Great and the West: New Perspectives, ed. Lindsey Hughes (Basingstoke: Palgrave,
2001), 250–70.
42 Rovinskii, Podrobnyi slovar’ russkikh gravirovannykh portretov, 3: col. 1823. Rovinskii was
probably the source of a similar assertion made in 1910: “Potëmkin, Pëtr Ivanovich,” in
Russkii biograficheskii slovar’ A. A. Polovtsova, 25 vols (St Petersburg and Moscow: Tip.
I. N. Skorokhodova, 1896–1918), 14: 685.
43 Rovinskii, Podrobnyi slovar’ russkikh gravirovannykh portretov, 3: col. 1823.
44 See Lindsey Hughes, “Images of the Elite: A Reconsideration of the portrait in seventeenth-
century Russia,” Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte 56 (2000): 167–85.
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44 Louise Hardiman
Figure 2.7
Robert White, after Sir Godfrey Kneller
His Excellency Peter John Potemkin,
Ambassador Extraordinary from the Czar
of Moscovy, 1682, line engraving,
38 cm × 26.8 cm (sheet), National
Portrait Gallery, London.
© 2019 NATIONAL PORTRAIT
GALLERY
Establishing direct links is problematic due to lack of evidence but suffice

it to say that images of works by Kneller in circulation might have catalysed
the development of Russian portraiture, as so few other examples of western
painting existed in Russia at the time. There was artistic exchange with the
west, but this had barely progressed beyond the realms of architecture and
craft; for example, Peter’s father, Tsar Alexei, brought in Italian designers to
work on new Kremlin buildings.45 So far as Peter is concerned, it has been
suggested that at the time the tsar’s portrait was made by Kneller, he was not
especially interested in the visual arts.46 However, this certainly changed in
the early 1700s, when Peter’s creation of the new city of St Petersburg fuelled a
need for architects and artisans. Other projects were commissioned to further
the tsar’s regal image. In 1716, Peter met the Baroque sculptor Carlo Bartolomeo
Rastrelli (1675–1744) in Königsberg and invited him to Russia. Rastrelli pro-
duced a bronze bust of the tsar in armour and other works such as an eques-
trian statue and a lifesize waxwork model.47 One of Rastrelli’s sculptures was
45 On the history of Russia’s engagement with western architecture, see Dmitry Shvidkovsky,
Russian Architecture and the West (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007).
46 Blakesley, Russia and the Arts, 19.
47 Rastrelli is not to be confused with his son, Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli (1700–71), who
worked on several prominent architectural commissions for Catherine the Great, includ-
ing the Winter Palace in St Petersburg and the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoe Selo. Both
artists came to St Petersburg in 1716 at Peter’s invitation. On the tsar’s patronage of Italian
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Figure 2.8
Anonymous, Portrait of Peter I, after
Godfrey Kneller, c. 1700, enamel on
copperplate, painting, silver filigree
frame, 10 × 8.5 cm, State Hermitage
Museum, St Petersburg.
© THE STATE HERMITAGE
MUSEUM. PHOTO LEONARD
KHEIFETS, ALEKSEY PAKHOMOV,
SVETLANA SUETOVA, VLADIMIR
TEREBENIN
sent to Frederick IV of Denmark in 1724, testifying to Peter’s new interest in

giving works of fine art.48 In addition, the tsar’s Netherlandish links led him to
introduce the arts of engraving and printmaking to Russia, and opportunities
for local and visiting artists continued to grow.
As regards painting, Peter began to acquire foreign works on his second
tour of the west in 1716.49 While away, he sat for more portraits by western art-
ists, including another depiction in armour, painted by Karl (Carel de) Moor
in Amsterdam (Portrait of Peter I, 1717, private collection).50 Spurred on by
Peter’s own desire for royal image-making, the Petrine age ushered in a new
practice of courtly and diplomatic portraiture. A pre-eminent figure was Ivan
Nikitin (1690–1741), who was sent by the tsar to Italy for artistic training and
began to paint court portraits in the 1710s. Later in the century came Aleksei
artists, see Sergei O. Androsov, Russkie zakazchiki i ital’ianskie khudozhniki v XVIII veke
(St Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 2003).
48 Hughes, Russia in the Age of Peter, 230.
49 Blakesley, The Russian Canvas, 14–15.
50 The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg holds a copy of the original made by Andrei
Matveev (Portrait of Emperor Peter the Great, after 1717, oil on canvas, 78 × 61 cm, inv.
no. ЭРЖ–3298, https://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/explore/
artworks/?lng=en, accessed June 16, 2020). For a discussion of the Moor portrait, see
Lindsay Hughes, “From Tsar to Emperor: Portraits of Aleksei and Peter I,” in Picturing
Russia: Explorations in Visual Culture, ed. Valerie A. Kivelson and Joan Neuberger (New
Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2008), 51.
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46 Louise Hardiman
Figure 2.9
John Smith, after Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bt.,
Peter I (Peter the Great), 1698, mezzotint,
40.7 × 28.1 cm (plate), Royal Collection
Trust, London.
ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST © HER
Antropov (1716–95), whose diplomatic portrait of Georgian King Teimuraz II

(1761), made for Peter’s daughter and successor, Empress Elizaveta, during a
royal visit, counts as an early example of a Russian diplomatic portrait after
the western manner.51 Likewise, mirroring European practice, the empress
subsequently commissioned an engraving of the work from printmakers Efim
Vinogradov and Evgenii Grebov as a further gift for the visiting king.52
As Hughes notes, engravings in Russia were not widely circulated among
the public at this time, but those of the two Kneller works must surely have
reached court circles.53 In England, as was customary for Kneller, his paint-
ing of Potemkin was engraved after its making by the artist’s then-favoured
printmaker, Robert White (fig. 2.7).54 The embellishment of the image, which
51 Previously thought lost, the original painting was rediscovered in 2018. See: “Return of
the Royal Treasure: Journey of the exquisite portrait of the King poet and illuminator,
Teimuraz II,” Google Arts and Culture, https://artsandculture.google.com/story/return-
of-the-royal-treasure%C2%A0/UwLSmn67FdJSLQ, accessed July 20, 2020.
52 See E. G. Vinogradov and A. A. Grekov, Portret gruzinskogo tsaria Teimuraza II, 1761, after
A. P. Antropov, etching, reproduced at “Graviura v Rossii. XVII—pervoi poloviny XIX
stoletiia,” http://russianprints.ru/reference_book/provenance/rovinskiy4.shtml, accessed
August 17, 2020.
54 A second engraving, not discussed here, was made by Abraham Blooteling. See footnote 9.
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Figure 2.10
After Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bt., “Peter I.
Czar of Russia,” engraving, reproduced
in British Autography (London: J. Thane,
1819). Royal Collection Trust, London.
points to the diplomatic and trading connections between two countries, sug-
gests that the print was made with a British audience in mind. White takes
only the head and shoulders of the sitter, with a small full-length image in a
roundel; a lion and a bear on either side represent England and Russia. Pelts
held aloft by putti may allude to gifts brought by the Russians, as recounted
by the renowned diarist John Evelyn, who attended the ambassador’s arrival:
“Then came in the present, […] consisting of mantles and other large pieces
lined with sable, black fox and ermine; Persian carpets, the ground cloth of
gold and velvet; hawks, such as they sayd never came the like; horses trained
to be Persian; bowes and arrows, & c.”55 The sense of the exotic conveyed by
the print’s ornamentation was replicated in the engraving that White made of
Kneller’s ben Hadu portrait, thereby grouping Russia and Morocco together—
both were represented as distant and asiatic “other.”56
55 John Evelyn, The Diary of John Evelyn, Esq., F.R.S., 1641-1705-6, ed. William Bray (London:
Frederick Warne and Co., 1879), 291.
56 For a reproduction, see The British Museum, London, catalogue no. 1982, U.1986, https://
www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1982-U-1986, accessed November 17, 2020.
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48 Louise Hardiman
Turning to the Peter portrait, this was copied even more extensively in oil
and in print. It was considered a good likeness and met with the tsar’s approval.
As Kneller’s original would not be travelling to Russia, Peter commissioned
miniatures of the head and shoulders from Charles Boit. These were distrib-
uted as gifts to royalty and nobility in Russia and abroad, as well as serving as
a prototype for further copies to be made by artists in the Kremlin workshops
(fig. 2.8).57 But in Petrine Russia the emerging medium for dissemination of
the ruler’s image was the engraving. As Hughes has written, it was in the 1680s
that “official circles began to exploit the political usefulness of prints.”58 By
1700, the circulation of prints with the tsar’s image from the Kneller painting
could support his audacious strategy of self-promotion and “publicize and
justify Russia’s achievements at home and abroad.”59 In due course, numer-
ous engravings based on the image were made (for example, figs. 2.9 and 2.10),
some even dating from over a century later.60
Among other things, the prints based on the Kneller portrait supported
Peter in the creation of an overtly imperial iconography and in his mission
to adopt western cultural practices, for example, in dress, at court and among
the nobility.61 For example, in the most well-known of the engravings, a mez-
zotint by Kneller’s printmaker, John Smith (fig. 2.9), the oval-framed portrait
image stands on a classically sculpted plinth, ornamented by entwined olive
branches.62 Furthermore, Peter’s short hair and thin moustache, his armour
and ermine robe, and the kingly regalia positioned at the base of the portrait
all reflect the western courtly norms that he wished to promulgate. Indeed, the
shift in imagery from the portrait of Potemkin to that of Peter provides a vivid
illustration of court dress before and after the tsar’s westernising reforms.
In the nineteenth century, Kneller’s imagery would be summoned again,
when a period of reaction began against almost two centuries of European
artistic influx spurred by Peter. A version of Potemkin’s image appeared in the
state-sponsored artistic compendium Costumes of the Russian State [Odezhdy
Russkogo gosudarstvo], created by the artist Fedor Solntsev (fig. 2.11).63
Accordingly, Kneller’s portrait played a role in defining the iconography for
57 Cracraft, The Revolution of Peter, 91.

59 Ibid.
60 For an extensive listing of prints based on the “Kneller type,” see Rovinskii, Podrobnyi
slovar’ russkikh gravirovannykh portretov, 3: cols. 1536–60.
61 On Peter the Great and imperial iconography in portraiture, see Hughes, “From Tsar to
Emperor.”
62 See also Rovinskii, Materialy dlia russkoi ikonografy, 3: 4–5, cat. no. 100.
63 The accompanying text misstates both the artist’s name and the date of production, stat-
ing that the portrait was painted by “Ingler” in London and engraved there by White in
1680.
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Figure 2.11
Fedor Solntsev, “Odezhda boiar v XVI i
XVII stoletii. Polevoe plat’e Godunova.
Portret Afanasiia Vlas’eva. Portret stol’nika
Petra Potemkina,” chromolithograph
F. Dreger, New York Public Library Digital
Collections, https://digitalcollections.
nypl.org/items/510d47de-
1371-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99.
PHOTOGRAPH KYLE R. TRIPLETT
Russia’s return to national style in art and material culture. Around the same
time, Peter’s image reappeared in a mid-nineteenth-century British engraving
by William Holl (the Younger).64 A few decades later, a version of the Potemkin
portrait surfaced again, this time in lacquer on a commemorative album made
by the Lukutin workshop.65 Doubtless there will be other examples of its
re-appearance.
With the surprising longevity of their imagery, the two portraits, whose
beginnings lay in diplomatic encounters, thus had many afterlives in cultural
history, especially in Russia. Potemkin, and then Peter, may deliberately have
sought portraits in the western manner so as to signal Russia’s development
and progress a strategy of European acculturation, which could then be dis-
seminated both in Russia and in Europe through reproductions. While their
64 https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1920-1211-1489, accessed Novem

ber 14, 2020.
65 A Russian lacquer-mounted commemorative album and cover in honour of the “Boyarin,”
Lukutin Factory, Korobovo, 1880–1903, reproduced in The Art of Russian Lacquer:
Nineteenth Century Masterworks from the Taylor Collection (November 9, 2018), Freeman’s
Auction, Minneapolis, auction catalogue, 89 (lot 303), https://issuu.com/freemansauc-
tion/docs/1618a, accessed July 23, 2021. I thank Nicholas Nicholson of the Russian History
Museum, Jordanville, NY for bringing this to my attention.
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50 Louise Hardiman
true intentions are difficult to decode, it remains the case that art made in the
diplomatic sphere was subject to the vagaries and tacit motives of patrons and
sitters in a mutual dance of power relations—a performance which still gov-
erns artistic gift-giving and diplomacy to this day.
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Chapter 3
Catherine II, the Cathcarts, and

Russian Anglophilia
Anthony Cross
By the summer of 1768 Empress Catherine II, yet to be called “the Great,” had
been on the Russian throne for six years and, in the eyes of many, was sit-
ting there somewhat uncomfortably and temporarily, prior to her ceding her
throne to her son and legitimate heir, Pavel Petrovich (b. 1754), on his achieving
majority. Catherine (fig. 3.1) of course had different ideas and intended only
to consolidate, not to cede. Her reign thus far had been eventful, if not to say
tumultuous, and the year 1768 not the least so. It was then that the Legislative
Commission, convened the previous summer in Moscow and guided by the
provisions of the empress’s famous Nakaz [Instruction], had moved to St
Petersburg to continue its work. Later that year war broke out between Russia
and Turkey, ending only in 1774 when Russia was able at last to secure a foot-
hold on the Black Sea and could protect—for the time being—a newly inde-
pendent Crimean Khanate. It was also in 1768 that the so-called war of the
Bar Confederation began, which would end in 1772 with the first Partition of
Poland but with King Stanisław Poniatowski, Catherine’s erstwhile lover, still
on the Polish throne. And it was, moreover, in July 1768 that Catherine was
aboard the flagship of her admiral after reviewing her fleet at Kronstadt, when
a British merchantman appeared on the horizon. At first this was thought
to be the HMS Tweed, on which the new British ambassador to Russia, Lord
Cathcart, was expected to arrive. Henry Shirley, British chargé d’affaires follow-
ing the departure of the previous ambassador, Sir George Macartney, reported
to London that the empress had immediately sent one of her chamberlains,
the English-speaking Baron Aleksandr Cherkasov, “to invite Lord Cathcart to
visit a lady who was very desirous of his acquaintance,” only to be “much disap-
pointed” at his non-arrival.1
1 Dispatch of July 20, 1768, Sbornik Imperatorskogo Russkogo Istoricheskogo Obshchestva,

148 vols (St Petersburg: Tip. Imperatorskoi Akademii nauk, 1867–1916) (hereafter “SIRIO”), 12
(1873): 343.

56 Anthony Cross
Lieutenant-General Charles Schaw Cathcart, ninth Lord Cathcart (1721–76)

was a military man first and foremost, some might contend uniquely so. He
had fought in the War of the Austrian Succession, and it was at the Battle
of Fontenoy in May 1745 that he had received a most serious head wound
and a resulting scar that he covered with an eye-patch, leading to the nick-
name “Patch” Cathcart. He insisted that the accoutrement should be seen
as a badge of honour on his portraits, as in those painted by Sir Joshua
Reynolds in June 1761 (fig. 3.2) and again after Cathcart’s ambassadorship,
in 1773.2 Continuing as aide-de-camp to Prince William Augustus, Duke of
Cumberland, he fought and was again wounded the following year at the
Battle of Culloden. His continuing loyalty to King George II and to the Duke
of Cumberland, the so-called “butcher of Culloden,” has been for some mod-
ern commentators an indelible stain on his escutcheon, but it brought him
a string of significant offices and titles, such as the Order of the Thistle.3 At
the time of his appointment to an ambassadorship, for which he was utterly
unqualified and which others were loath to accept, he was Scotland’s first Lord
Commissioner of Police. The historian Hamish Scott is damning in his assess-
ment of Cathcart’s subsequent performance in St Petersburg, describing him
as “an inadequate ambassador, careless over cypher security, long-winded in
2 The date of the portrait reproduced in this chapter is as stated in H. M. Scott, “Cathcart,
Charles Schaw, ninth Lord Cathcart (1721–1776),” in Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2004) (hereafter “Oxford DNB”), 10:539, https://doi.org/10.1093/
ref:odnb/4885. However, the holder of the work, Manchester Art Gallery, gives it as c. 1753–55.
The Cathcarts held Reynolds, who also painted Lady Cathcart (see fig. 3.3), in high regard. On
February 12, 1773, after his return, Lord Cathcart reported to King George III a recent conver-
sation he had had in London with the Russian envoy, Aleksei Semenovich Musin-Pushkin,
who had been ordered by the empress “to procure her the best whole Length Pictures
possible of the King, the Queen, the Prince of Wales and Prince Frederick,” but whom
Cathcart had advised not to enter “precipitately into Engagements with any inferior Artists.”
Cathcart suggested Reynolds to the king as best equipped to produce suitable portraits but,
in the event, it was George Dance whose portraits of the king and queen were delivered
to Catherine in June 1774 and found a place in her new Chesmenskii [Chesme or Chesma]
Palace. See The correspondence of King George the Third from 1760 to December 1783, printed
from the original papers in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, arranged and edited by the
Hon. Sir John Fortescue, 6 vols (London: Macmillan and Co., 1927–28), 2: 452–53. See also
Larisa A. Dukel’skaia and Elizaveta P. Renne, Ermitazh. Sobranie zapadnoevropeiskoi zhi-
vopisi. Katalog. Angliiskaia zhivopis’ XVI–XIX veka (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1990), 42–44, for a
detailed but somewhat inaccurate discussion.
3 Ed Glinert, a Manchester journalist and social campaigner and author of The Manchester
Compendium: A Street by Street History of Britain’s Greatest Industrial City (London: Penguin
Books, 2009), has called for the removal from Manchester Art Gallery of the first of the
Reynolds portraits of Cathcart; see www.newmanchesterwalks.com/news/uncomfortable-
art-uncomfortable-history, accessed September 24, 2018.
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Catherine II, the Cathcarts, and Russian Anglophilia 57
his official dispatches, and relaxed about diplomatic etiquette, but he secured
the friendship and even affection of the Russian empress.”4
The main object of Cathcart’s mission, which he failed miserably to achieve,
was the re-negotiation of the Treaty of Alliance that had been signed between
Britain and Russia in 1742 during the reign of Empress Elizabeth, for a term
of fifteen years. (His predecessors, most notably John Hobart, second Earl
of Buckinghamshire [1723–93], had been no more successful in advancing
Britain’s cause.5) Cathcart, however, was more effective in the realm of cul-
ture than in politics. He was fortunate in that he had brought his wife to St
Petersburg, and it was under her influence that he was to attain British success
in Russia of a different, but, in its way, no less significant kind.
By the time Jane, Lady Cathcart (b. 1726) (fig. 3.3) came to Russia she had
already given birth to seven children, two of whom were still-born, and thus
she arrived with five, two boys and three girls, while also heavily pregnant with
her eighth, whom she lost within weeks. She gave birth to her ninth and last
child in 1770, a daughter who was named, with diplomatic tact, “Catherine
Charlotte,” and for whom the empress and her son Paul were sponsors.6 Lady
Cathcart’s health had never been robust, but in Russia she was continually ill,
and she was to die on November 2, 1771 in her forty-fourth year (fig. 3.4).7 Pious
and self-deprecating to a fault, she had soon after her arrival earned the admi-
ration of the empress, who was to treat her with uncommon attention and
admit her to her intimate circle. On hearing of her death, Catherine wrote to a
correspondent that “c’était une dame de grandes vertus.”
4 Scott, “Cathcart, Charles Schaw.”

5 See also Hamish M. Scott, “Great Britain, Poland and the Russian Alliance, 1763–1767,” The
Historical Journal 19, no. 1 (March 1976): 53–74.
6 Cathcart mentions that Lady Cathcart received from the empress as a gift for her daughter
“a most magnificent diamond aigrette” [a headdress adorned with a spread of egret feath-
ers] and from Grand Duke Paul, “another of less, but of very considerable value” (SIRIO, 19
(1876): 66). Catherine Charlotte never enjoyed the gifts, as her father sold them for the not
insignificant amount of £800 [equating to around £150,000 today] soon after their return to
Britain (see Margaret Ethel Maxtone Graham, The Beautiful Mrs Graham and the Cathcart
Circle [London: Nisbet & Co., 1927], 18).
7 Following his wife’s death Cathcart wrote and had printed in St Petersburg the “Particulars
addrest to Lady Cathcart’s Friends” (eleven pages and dated November 5, 1771). See Charles
Schaw Cathcart, Particulars addrest to Lady Cathcart’s Friends (St Petersburg: [n.p.], 1771).
A posthumous medallion portrait in marble was made by Marie-Anne Collot, of which an
engraving was made by Francesco Bartolozzi (fig. 3.4). See H. N. Opperman, “Marie-Anne
Collot in Russia: Two Portraits,” The Burlington Magazine 107, no. 749 (Western Art in the
U.S.S.R.) (August 1965): 408–12.
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58 Anthony Cross
Figure 3.2 Sir Joshua Reynolds, Portrait of Charles, 9th Lord Cathcart (1761), oil on canvas,
124 × 99 cm, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester.
CREATIVE COMMONS BY SA 4.0 / IMAGE COURTESY MANCHESTER ART
GALLERY
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Figure 3.3 James Macardell and Richard Houston, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, Jane Cathcart
(née Hamilton), Lady Cathcart, mezzotint, published 1770, 345 mm × 250 mm
(paper), National Portrait Gallery, London.
© 2019 NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
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60 Anthony Cross
Figure 3.4
Francesco Bartolozzi, after Marie-Anne
Collot, Jane Hamilton, Lady Cathcart,
17th century, etching and stipple
engraving, 27.5 × 21.5 cm, Bibliothèque
Sainte-Geneviève, Paris.
ARCHIVE.ORG / CREATIVE
COMMONS PUBLIC DOMAIN
MARK 1.0
The loss of his wife only hastened Cathcart’s desire to quit the Russian court.8
Without her he was a lost soul, but together they had been an influential
cultural force in late eighteenth-century St Petersburg. In his dispatches and
letters Cathcart referred to her almost invariably not as “my wife” or “Lady
Cathcart” but as “the ambassadress,” emphasising, if not altogether intention-
ally, the significance of her role as a representative of the British state in Russia.
He also described her as “not only a Peeress of Great Britain, but immediately
descended from the united houses of Hamilton and Douglas, the most illustri-
ous of her country.” She did indeed have familial connections to the world of
diplomacy, being the elder sister of William (later Sir William) Hamilton (1730–
1803), who had been the British Envoy Extraordinary, soon raised to Minister
Plenipotentiary, to the court of Naples since 1764.9 But before exploring fur-
ther the relevance and significance of this kinship for the Cathcart embassy,
it would seem important to address the question of Russian attitudes towards
Britain during this period, most importantly those of the empress herself, and
that of the position of the British community in the Russian capital.
Cathcart was the latest of five successive British ambassadors with whom
Catherine, firstly as grand duchess and subsequently as empress, established a
8 SIRIO, 19: x.
9 SIRIO, 12: 353.
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generally positive relationship, the only exception among them being Robert
Keith, who was sympathetic to Peter III and thus hastily withdrawn from
Russia at his own request following the coup that brought her to the throne
in July 1762. As grand duchess, Catherine was close to Sir Charles Hanbury
Williams (1708–59), who was not only an experienced diplomat but a poet and
satirist. Williams brought with him to St Petersburg as his personal secretary
Stanisław Poniatowski (1732–98), the soon-to-be paramour of Catherine for
whom Williams would, in effect, act as pimp (the Russian svodnik [procurer]
perhaps more accurately and gently conveys his role). It is not, however, the
fact that Catherine would later engineer her former lover’s election to the
Polish throne in 1764 that is significant here, but rather that Williams encour-
aged her to begin to learn English. He supplied her with copies of English liter-
ary works, and generally stimulated an interest in England that Poniatowski
himself undoubtedly would also have bolstered.
The first two ambassadors appointed during Catherine’s reign, the already
mentioned John Hobart, Earl of Buckinghamshire, and Sir George Macartney
(1737–1806), both sensed a shift not so much in political re-alignment, although
there was a degree of that, as in newly developing Anglo-Russian cultural affin-
ities. The emergence of this promising new stance of the empress was perhaps
best formulated, however, by the already mentioned Henry Shirley, who was
to remain in Russia as Cathcart’s secretary. In records dated September 1767
Shirley noted that Russian nobles, abandoning French ways, “now seem to
grow very fond of any thing that is English, forming their taste to ours” and will
possibly “conceive advantageous notions of the grandeur of Great Britain.”10
Cathcart was soon convinced of the justice of such views, observing just three
months after his arrival that:
Russia, to my predecessors, as their correspondence shows, appeared under

French influence, from inclination, custom and education. Russia is now, by the
empress’s firm determined and declared opinions, and will be more so by all her
institutions, decidedly English.11
He might have added that a particular achievement of his immediate prede-

cessor was already providing benefits which he undoubtedly witnessed and
enjoyed.
10 Ibid., 310.
11 Ibid., 382.
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62 Anthony Cross
Figure 3.5
James Walker, after Dmitrii Levitskii,
Sir Samuel Greig, mezzotint, published
November 1, 1788, 410 × 294 mm (paper),
National Portrait Gallery, London.
© 2021 NATIONAL PORTRAIT
GALLERY
The young Irishman Macartney, only twenty-seven when appointed but

already with more diplomatic experience than Cathcart, had been sent as
envoy extraordinary with the specific task of re-negotiating the important but
lapsed Anglo-Russian Commercial Agreement that had been first signed in
1734 for a period of fifteen years. To the astonishment even of those who sent
him and the particular delight of those British resident in the Russian capi-
tal, Macartney succeeded in the task, and a second treaty was signed in 1766.
The agreement would bring not only the restoration of Britain as the “most
favoured nation” in terms of trade but a sense of stability and permanence
to those British merchants who were living in Russia. As a result, British resi-
dents quickly moved to consolidate their position as the main foreign commu-
nity in the Russian capital. Over the next few years and indeed largely during
Cathcart’s embassy, as the community grew with the influx of more merchants,
craftsmen, and specialists of all kinds, a number of institutions were estab-
lished which reflected Britain’s presence, not to say pre-eminence. In the sum-
mer of 1770 the English Club was founded, the most famous and long-lasting
of Petersburg clubs, and this was soon followed by the masonic lodge, “Perfect
Union.” Among the many visitors to the latter was William Richardson, tutor
to the Cathcart boys, and author of Anecdotes of the Russian Empire, a work of
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more substance and insight than the title might suggest but published only
much later in 1784.12
It was undoubtedly stories of the strength and wealth of the British com-
munity that persuaded a troupe of British professional actors to try their luck
in the Russian capital, but as Lord Cathcart noted in a dispatch to London,
dated October 12, 1770, the audience consisted not only of British and German
residents but also “Russians, who regularly frequent and applaud them [the
actors], and indeed seem much entertained though they do not not under-
stand the language.”13 Even more notable was the presence of the empress
and her son Paul at performances that the ambassador inevitably interpreted
as “a compliment intended to be paid the nation,” and she also provided the
financial support for a more permanent home for the players on Tsaritsyn lug
(better known today as Marsovo pole). Catherine was present again at the
opening of this new theatre on February 9, 1771, when in a specially composed
“prologue” to a performance of Nicholas Rowe’s Jane Shore, she was hailed as
“Britannia’s friend.”14 Although she did not see the first performance of a play
by Shakespeare on Russian soil, Othello, on January 5, 1772, she was an admirer
of the bard, fashioning a decade or so later at least two plays on Shakespearean
themes. Her burgeoning love of English letters was, however, already manifest
in books selected for translation into Russian under the aegis of the Sobranie
staraiushcheesia o perevode inostrannykh knig [The Society for the Translation
of Foreign Books] that she founded in October 1768. Translations, albeit via
French and German intermediary versions, of three novels by Henry Fielding
appeared in 1772, but two other translations directly from English reveal clearly
the empress’s admiration for English authority and expertise: one of the first
publications in 1770 was a translation of Thomas Dimsdale’s Present Method
of Inoculating for the Small-Pox (1767) with addenda, although the version of
William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England was delayed until
1780.15
12 William Richardson, Anecdotes of the Russian Empire: In a Series of Letters, Written, a Few
Years Ago, from St. Petersburg (London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1784). See also Anthony
Cross, Chapter I: “The Colony by the Banks of the Neva,” in Anthony G. Cross, By the Banks
of the Neva: Chapters from the Lives and Careers of the British in Eighteenth-Century Russia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 9.
13 SIRIO, 19: 123.
14 See Anthony Cross, “Mr Fisher’s Company of English Actors in Eighteenth-Century
Petersburg,” Newsletter of the Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia, no. 4 (1976):
49–56.
15 See Anthony G. Cross, “‘S anglinskago’: Books of English Origin in Russian Translation in
Late Eighteenth-Century Russia,” Oxford Slavonic Papers 19 (New Style) (1986): 65–66.
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64 Anthony Cross
The Dimsdale publication was a direct consequence of an event early in

Cathcart’s embassy, albeit not of the ambassador’s contriving, that was of
supreme import in helping to establish Britain as “that island of wisdom, cour-
age and virtue.”16 Such were the words of the renowned Russian prelate, Bishop
Platon, who had conducted the service of thanksgiving on November 22, 1768
for the full recovery from smallpox inoculation of the empress, who had sum-
moned Dr Dimsdale, whom Cathcart characterised on first acquaintance as “a
very worthy and respectable man and of great prudence,” to perform the oper-
ation on her in October.17 It was an action of undoubted courage from both
patient and doctor and could only strengthen the reputation of British doctors,
among whom Dr John Rogerson was already administering to Catherine at the
beginning of a long and influential career as imperial body physician.
Catherine was generally and openly sceptical about the performance of
doctors, but she had no such reservations about the prowess of British sea-
men. In this the English were supportive of her ambitions. Upon her accession
she had inherited a fleet that she compared, disparagingly, to a collection of
herring boats, but an influx of British officers into Russian service in the early
1760s brought about a transformation. This was soon evident in the empress’s
great naval victory at Chesme Bay [Çeşme, Turkey], at which the Scottish-born
future admiral of the Russian navy, Samuel Greig (1735–88) (fig. 3.5) first
made his mark. In the same year of 1770, King George III allowed Sir Charles
Knowles, the most senior of all British officers, to enter Russian service with
the express task of re-organizing the Russian navy. This was much appreciated
by the empress, as once again Cathcart noted in a dispatch.18
One of the most obvious signs of British influence during Catherine’s
reign was in landscape gardening. Although Cathcart had already returned to
England when Catherine made her famous declaration to Voltaire of her pas-
sion for the English style of gardening, it was during his embassy that Russians
were sent at the behest of the empress to England to learn the secrets and tech-
niques of the English style and British gardeners recruited to work at Tsarskoe
Selo and other Imperial estates. The empress herself was engaged over the
years 1771–73 in editing an amplified French version of Thomas Whately’s
influential Observations on Modern Gardening, leaving among her papers, but
never publishing, her “principes pour former le jardin dans le goût anglois.”19
16 Richardson, Anecdotes of the Russian Empire, 36.

17 SIRIO, 19: 363.
18 SIRIO, 19: 152.
19 Anthony Cross, “Catherine, the English Garden, and Thomas Whately’s Observations on
Modern Gardening,” in Anthony G. Cross, Catherine the Great and the British (Keyworth:
Astra Press, 2001), 83.
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Catherine used the word “anglomanie” in describing how it dominated her

“plantomanie,” but she was in truth Anglophile as opposed to Anglomaniac,
professing a reasoned admiration of much that Britain could offer that was
far from blind adherence. It was an attitude that during their Russian sojourn
the Cathcarts were eager to sustain and to feed in new and productive ways.
Indeed, in Lady Cathcart Catherine found a true arbiter of taste and, moreover,
virtually a direct conduit to the very latest in English fashion.
On March 24, 1768, some four months before their departure for St
Petersburg, the Cathcarts paid a visit to the London showrooms of the potter
Josiah Wedgwood in preparation for the diplomatic assignment. Wedgwood
recorded in a letter to his friend and soon-to-be-partner, Thomas Bentley, that
he had “spent several hours with Ld Cathcart, our Embassador to Russia, &
we are to do great things for each other.”20 Over the next three years they did
precisely that, when Lady Cathcart, who acted as amanuensis for her husband,
assumed the leading role in correspondence with the partners, advising them
on how best to conduct their business in distant Russia. Undoubtedly the first
visit to Wedgwood was inspired by their wish to order a service of the cream-
coloured earthenware that he had brought to perfection over the preceding
five years in the Burslem factory and which was already known in the British
market as “Queen’s Ware,” after Queen Charlotte’s delight in a tea and coffee
set prepared for Buckingham House (as the palace was then known). It was
after this that permission was granted for Wedgwood to use the title “Potter
to Her Majesty,” and to re-name his London showrooms “The Queen’s Arms”
in 1766. The Cathcarts ordered a dinner service bearing the Cathcart family
crest that was duly delivered to Russia, and soon Lady Cathcart would write to
Wedgwood that “Certain it is that the Nobility of this country express the high-
est approbation whenever they see any of the Queens Ware at our house.”21
She presented a sample of the Wedgwood to the empress, which, according to
Lady Cathcart’s account, was “highly approved,” and led to the order from the
firm for a bespoke dinner service for twenty-four people.22 This commission
became known as the “Husk Service,” from its hand-painted border of wheat
husks, which surround a central floral spray in purple monochrome enamel;
surviving pieces are to be found in the Great Palace at Peterhof. Ordered early
in 1770, the set was eventually delivered in the autumn, but not before being
20 Letters of Josiah Wedgwood, ed. Katherina Eufemia Farrer, 3 vols (London: Women’s
Printing Society, 1903), 1: 211.
21 Jane, Lady Cathcart, to Josiah Wedgwood, quoted in Peter Hayden, “Russian Patrons of
English Pottery,” Britain–USSR, no. 72 (December 1985): 6.
22 Ibid.
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66 Anthony Cross
shown to King George III and Queen Charlotte, who promptly ordered a simi-
lar service.
If the Cathcarts scored a notable success with the introduction into Russia
of Queen’s Ware, they were even more influential in encouraging the spread of
the vogue of the “Etruscan” style of porcelain (even if, as Johann Winckelmann
was among the first to point out, the so-called Etruscan in this case was in
fact Greek). In this undertaking the role of Lady Cathcart’s brother, the diplo-
mat William Hamilton, was paramount. For thirty-six years, from 1764 to 1800,
Hamilton represented British interests in Naples and did so with dedication
and success, but from the very beginning he had enjoyed a European reputa-
tion as scholar, connoisseur, and collector. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
in 1766, and a decade later to the Society of Dilettanti, he was a close, often very
close observer of volcanic eruptions, and a frequent visitor to the ancient sites
of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Almost from the moment of his arrival in Italy
he began to amass an enormous collection of urns and vases, coins, and other
artefacts. But most important in shaping European taste was the publication in
late 1766 in Naples of the first volume of his Collection of Etruscan, Greek, and
Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Hon. William Hamilton, His Britannic
Majesty’s Envoy Extraordinary at the Court of Naples, followed in 1770 by the
second volume, and by volumes three and four after delays not of his making
in 1776.23 Wedgwood, who moved in 1769 into a new factory on the edge of
Stoke-on-Trent, which he named Etruria, was already experimenting to create
modern versions of vases in the Etruscan style (“black basaltes,” as he initially
called them) when the first volume of Hamilton’s collection appeared. It would
appear that Lady Hamilton possessed not only the book, but also many sepa-
rate sheet engravings from it, and others destined for the next volume, and she
had left these with Wedgwood as a source of obvious inspiration.24
After their arrival in St Petersburg the Cathcarts had moved into the house on
the embankment of the river Moika of Count Zakhar Grigor’evich Chernyshev
and proceeded to have their new diplomatic residence redecorated after the
latest fashion. (In a fitting parallel, Chernyshev was brother of the then Russian
ambassador in London.) Lady Cathcart’s taste for the neo-classical interior,
and her desire to support her brother’s passion for antiquity are made clear in
a letter to Hamilton of January 1769, in which she writes that “our Dining Room
23 Collection of Etruscan, Greek, and Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Hon. William.
Hamilton, His Britannic Majesty’s Envoy Extraordinary at the Court of Naples, 4 vols
(Naples: [n.p.], 1766–76).
24 Brian Dolan, Josiah Wedgwood: Entrepreneur to the Enlightenment (London: Harper
Collins, 2004), 206–07.
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is painted from yr Etruscan Collection. My Lord [i.e., Cathcart] presided over it

himself & the German artist that Executed it, in Figures as large as the life, has
succeeded surprisingly well.”25 It became, she suggests, the talk of the town,
for “the Russian nobility here reported it Charming to the Empress, who will I
flatter myself see it herself in the Course of the Winter in the Mean while she
has the Book. We are unluckily possessed as yet but of one Vol.”26
The empress may indeed have had a private view of the freshly deco-
rated interiors and the Hamilton catalogue, perhaps in the months before
the Cathcarts received her at a ball and supper arranged in their home on
December 2, 1770. This was a signal honour that the ambassador was quick to
emphasise in a dispatch of the following day to the Secretary of State for the
Northern Department, Lord Rochford: “I am assured this is the first instance of
her Imperial Majesty’s having ever supped in a foreigner’s house on any occa-
sion, or having even appeared in one, out of mask.”27 Of course, by that time,
the empress already possessed her first examples of Wedgwood tableware. At
the end of September 1769, when Wedgwood sent the Cathcarts the Queen’s
Ware they had ordered, he and his partner contrived to send a first consign-
ment of their Etruscan ware and, in Wedgwood’s words, to “borrow a pair of
her Ladyships chimney pieces to show them upon.”28 Upon their receipt Lady
Cathcart, after some delay, thanked Wedgwood for “Sending us two Sets of
your new Vases in the Etruscan Stile or rather exact Model of some of those
in my Brs. Collection.”29 Although initially worried that the vases might not
appeal to Russian taste, she was soon delighted to report that “her Imperial
Majesty is vastly pleased by what was executed by her Command;” indeed she
“kept all the Vases & the Dejeune you sent to me, as samples, & [said] that they
were much liked.”30 To win the favour of the Russian empress was of course
to win the favour—and orders—of her courtiers and ultimately of the gentry.
Lady Cathcart, whom Wedgwood and Bentley called, with reason, their
“good Patroness,” or, at times, “Noble Patroness,” proved indefatigable in sug-
gesting ways that Wedgwood and Bentley could improve their trade with
Russia, as well as providing the names of merchants such as William Porter and
25 Auchindoune, Cawdor House, Nairn, Cathcart Papers, Folio I, no. 43, f. iv–2.
26 Ibid.
27 SIRIO, 19: 156.
28 Farrer, Letters of Josiah Wedgwood, 1: 279.
29 Jane, Lady Cathcart to Josiah Wedgwood, cited in Gaye Blake Roberts, “Josiah Wedgwood
and Queen’s Ware,” in The Green Frog Service, ed. Michael Raeburn, Ludmila Voronikhina,
and Andrew Nurnberg (London: Cacklegoose Press, 1995), 35.
30 Ibid., 36.
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68 Anthony Cross
Figure 3.6 Censer vase, 1770s, Matthew Boulton, fluorspar (Blue John), gilt-bronze, 31 cm,
State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
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Figure 3.7 Plate from the “Frog” Service, 1773, Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, creamware
(Queen’s Ware), painted in enamels, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
Peter Capper who could act as their Petersburg-based agents.31 Nevertheless,

when she wrote that “It will always give my Lord […] & me very particular
pleasure either to hear of, or to assist when we can in the Encouragement of
a Manufacture carried on with so much Skill & Industry & at so reasonable
a charge which I hope will always continue & which really does honr. to our
Country,” she was not thinking exclusively of Wedgwood.32
Another important figure to benefit from the Cathcarts’ patronage was
Matthew Boulton (1728–1809), who indeed had addressed Lord Cathcart as
ready “to promote every useful and laudable Art and every branch of the
Commerce of your Country.”33 Boulton, together with his partner John
31 Farrer, Letters of Josiah Wedgwood, 1: 409, 413.

32 Gaye Blake Roberts, “Josiah Wedgwood and Queen’s Ware,” 36.
33 Birmingham Reference Libraries, Matthew Boulton Papers, Letter Book E, f. 236.
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70 Anthony Cross
Fothergill, was another of the major players in the industrial revolution centred
around the area that became known as “the Potteries.” Initially seen as a pos-
sible partner for Wedgwood and Bentley, he soon emerged as a rival.34 Boulton
had moved from buckle-making to vase production and clock-making, and
ultimately to minting coins at his great Soho manufactory near Birmingham.
But in 1770 it was his ormolu ware—the gilding of vases—that earned him
a European reputation and found favour with the Russian empress. She pur-
chased the whole of his first consignment of vases, considering them “superior
in every respect to the French” (fig. 3.6).35
The death of Lady Cathcart came as a grievous blow to both Wedgwood
and Boulton and to other British manufacturers and craftsmen who sought the
Cathcarts’ good offices. They were deprived of a most energetic and resource-
ful supporter; however, despite this, their trade to Russia would still flourish
for many years. The most famous order that Wedgwood received from Russia
was yet to come, via the Russian Consul in London, the Scottish merchant
Alexander Baxter, in 1773, the year after the widowed Cathcart had returned to
Britain to become Rector of Glasgow University, and once there to engineer his
sons’ tutor William Richardson’s election to the Chair of Humanity.36 However,
it is more than likely that the famed nine hundred and fifty-two piece din-
ner and dessert service, known as the “Green Frog” for the emblem on each
piece (fig. 3.7), would never have been produced had the Cathcarts not so well
prepared the ground, facilitating the empress’s emergence as “Wedgwood’s
‘Great Patroness of the North’.”37 For all Cathcart’s limitations as a diplomat,
his embassy and the unfailing support of his wife did much to encourage
Catherine’s Anglophilia in new and unexpected ways.
34 Farrer, Letters of Josiah Wedgwood, 1: 208, 233–34, 285–87. See also Dolan, Josiah Wedgwood,
229–32.
35 Dolan, Josiah Wedgwood, 342. On Boulton, see also Nicholas Goodison, Ormolu: The Work
of Matthew Boulton (London: Phaidon Press, 1974).
36 On Baxter, see Anthony Cross, “Alexander Baxter, Russia’s First Consul General in
London,” Newsletter of the Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia, no. 29 (2001): 14–21,
http://www.sgecr.co.uk/sgecr-newsletter-29-2001.pdf, accessed April 20, 2020.
37 Farrer, Letters of Josiah Wedgwood, 2: 24. For the most comprehensive study and reproduc-
tions of the service, see Raeburn, et al., The Green Frog Service.
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Primary Sources
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Petersburg.” Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia Newsletter, no. 4 (1976):
49–56.
Cross, Anthony G. “‘S anglinskago’: Books of English Origin in Russian Translation in
Late Eighteenth-Century Russia.” Oxford Slavonic Papers 19 (New Series) (1986):
65–66.
Dolan, Brian. Josiah Wedgwood: Entrepreneur to the Enlightenment. London: Harper
Collins, 2004.
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72 Anthony Cross
Dukel’skaia, Larisa A., and Elizaveta P. Renne. Ermitazh. Sobranie zapadnoevropeiskoi

zhivopisi. Katalog. Angliiskaia zhivopis’ XVI–XIX veka. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1990.
Glinert, Ed. “Uncomfortable Art Uncomfortable History.” www.newmanchesterwalks.
com/news/uncomfortable-art-uncomfortable-history, accessed September 24, 2018.
Goodison, Nicholas. Ormolu: The Work of Matthew Boulton. London: Phaidon Press,
1974.
Hayden, Peter. “Russian Patrons of English Pottery.” Britain–USSR, no. 72
(December 1985): 6.
Maxtone Graham, Margaret Ethel. The Beautiful Mrs Graham and the Cathcart Circle.
London: Nisbet & Co., 1927.
Nurnberg, Andrew, Michael Raeburn, and Ludmila Voronikhina, eds. The Green Frog
Service. London: Cacklegoose Press, 1995.
Opperman, H. N. “Marie-Anne Collot in Russia: Two Portraits.” The Burlington Magazine
107, no. 749 (Western Art in the U.S.S.R.) (August 1965): 408–12.
Sbornik Imperatorskogo Russkogo Istoricheskogo Obshchestva. 148 vols. St Petersburg:
Tip. Imperatorskoi Akademii nauk, 1867–1916.
Scott, H. M. “Cathcart, Charles Schaw, ninth Lord Cathcart (1721–1776).” In Dictionary
of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, 10: 539. https://doi.
org/10.1093/ref:odnb/4885, accessed April 20, 2020.
Scott, Hamish M. “Great Britain, Poland and the Russian Alliance, 1763–1767.” The
Historical Journal 19, no. 1 (March 1976): 53–74.
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Chapter 4
Prince Grigorii Potemkin, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and

Anglo-Russian Artistic Diplomacy in the Age of
Catherine the Great
Elizaveta Renne
In late August 1789, a ship sailing from London and bearing the symbolic name
“Friendship” arrived in St Petersburg. In its cargo were three paintings by one
of the most renowned English artists of the period, Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–
92), destined for the growing art collection of Empress Catherine the Great
(reigned 1762–96). Complementing several earlier accounts of the history of
their commission, this chapter highlights those aspects of the story that shed
light on an important period in artistic contacts between Britain and Russia
during the reign of the empress.1
The commission was of equal importance to all parties and an example of
both political and cultural diplomacy. For Reynolds, an artist who had previ-
ously devoted his life mostly to portraiture, it presented an opportunity to
demonstrate his skills as a history painter, the genre that stood highest in the
academic hierarchy. The attention that the ruler of the emerging great power
paid to Reynolds, both as artist and theoretician, not only flattered him person-
ally and soothed his vanity but increased the prestige of the British school of
painting beyond its native shores. For Catherine, the commission represented
1 See: Aleksandra E. Krol’, Dzhoshua Reinol’ds: “Mladenets Gerakl” (Leningrad: State Hermitage
Museum, 1959); J. S. G. Simmons, “Samuel Johnson ‘On the Banks of the Neva’: A Note on a
Picture by Reynolds in the Hermitage,” in Johnson, Boswell and their Circle. Essays Presented
to Lawrence Fitzroy Powell in Honour of his Eighty-fourth Birthday (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1965), 208; Frederick W. Hilles, “Sir Joshua and the Empress Catherine,” in Eighteenth-Century
Studies in Honor of Donald F. Hyde, ed. William H. Bond (New York: Grolier Club, 1970),
267; Larissa A. Dukelskaya and Elizaveta P. Renne, The Hermitage Catalogue of Western
European Painting: British Painting, Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries (Florence: Giunti
Martello Editore, 1990), cat. nos. 72, 73, and 74; Martin Postle, Sir Joshua Reynolds: The
Subject Pictures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 194–233; Martin Postle, “Sir
Joshua Reynolds and the Court of Catherine the Great,” in British Art Treasures from Russian
Imperial Collections in the Hermitage, ed. Brian Allen and Larissa Dukelskaya (New Haven,
CT and London: Yale Center for British Art, 1996), 56; and Elizaveta P. Renne, State Hermitage
Museum Catalogue, Sixteenth- to Nineteenth-Century British Painting (New Haven, CT and
London: Yale University Press, 2011), 168–88.

74 Elizaveta Renne
yet another opportunity to demonstrate that she was a serious collector with a
wide range of interests from Antiquity to the modern age, one who was aware
of and ready to patronise the latest developments in contemporary European
as well as Russian painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts.
Collecting as Political Strategy
Almost from the very start of her reign the empress recognised that the col-
lecting of works of art was a matter of state significance. She consciously
competed with other royal connoisseurs and collectors, such as Frederick the
Great, buying paintings and Classical sculptures en masse.2 She encouraged
an interest in collecting among those in her circle, presenting both individual
works of art and whole collections to her lovers. Economically ruinous wars
with Turkey in 1768–74 and 1787–92, and with Sweden in 1788–90 did not pre-
vent her from purchasing whole collections for her Hermitage (the name she
gave to private spaces within her palace) and other palaces. All the while she
remembered, of course, to keep her Paris correspondent, the art critic and
diplomat Baron Melchior Grimm, fully informed about her latest acquisi-
tions, safe in the knowledge that he would immediately convey the news to
the rest of Europe. Even before the arrival of the celebrated Walpole collec-
tion in St Petersburg, she hastened to tell Grimm: “Did you know that I am
negotiating with the Count d’Orforth [The Earl of Orford] for all the paintings
that belonged to his late father, Robert Walpole? See how the larks are being
caught in my nets.”3 This sensational acquisition of a collection that was seen
as a symbol of British wealth and power led The European Magazine to lament
three years later that: “The removal of the Houghton Collection of Pictures to
2 The most important of these acquisitions were: in 1764, over three hundred paintings from
the Berlin merchant Johann Gotzkowski; in 1769, six hundred paintings from the collection
of the late Count Heinrich Brühl in Dresden; in 1770, the collection of François Tronchin of
Geneva; in 1772, the paintings from the Crozat collection in Paris and others from the collec-
tion of the Duc de Choiseul; in 1779, the collection of John Udny, British Consul in Leghorn,
and two hundred and four paintings from the Walpole collection at Houghton Hall; in 1785,
a small collection of Classical sculpture acquired in Rome; and, in 1787, the purchase of a
superb collection of Classical and post-Classical sculpture from Lyde Browne in London.
3 “Savez-vous que je suis en marché avec le comte d’Orforth pour toutes les peintures qui ont
appartenu à feu son père Robert Walpole? Voyez un peu comme les alouettes viennent don-
ner dans mes filets.” Catherine II to Friedrich Melchior Grimm, April 12, 1779, reproduced in
Pis’ma Imperatritsy Ekateriny II k Grimmu (1774–1796), ed. Ia. Grot. Sbornik Imperatorskogo
Russkogo Istoricheskogo Obshchestva, 148 vols (St Petersburg: Tip. Imperatorskoi Akademii
nauk, 1867–1916), 23 (1878): 126.
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Prince Grigorii Potemkin, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Diplomacy 75
Russia is, perhaps, one of the most striking instances that can be produced of
the decline of the empire of Great Britain, and the advancement of that of our
powerful ally in the north […].”4
Catherine’s acquisitions of contemporary British painting—pictures by
Joseph Wright of Derby, Joshua Reynolds, and Angelica Kauffman—and her
commissions of magnificent examples of decorative art, such as ceramics from
Josiah Wedgwood, vases from Matthew Boulton (fig. 3.6), and thousands of
engraved gems and casts from James Tassie, were part of a broader cultural
strategy. The empress spent vast sums on building palaces, laying out gardens,
and acquiring works of fine and decorative art, not only for her own private
purposes but also with the specific goal of creating a suitable and striking set-
ting for herself and a public image of her reign as that of a culturally enlight-
ened European monarch. To take but a single example, we might examine the
pseudo-Gothic castle jokingly named “La Grenouillère” [frog marsh]. Built
between 1773 and 1778, this palace a few miles outside St Petersburg housed,
together with portraits of Catherine, her son-and-heir, and his wife, fifty-eight
full-length images of her contemporaries on the thrones of Europe. She thus
presented herself as part of a European family of monarchs.
The name of the castle was echoed in the depiction of a little frog in a shield,
placed on each item in a large dinner service with fifty covers that was com-
missioned for the palace from the firm Josiah Wedgwood and Thomas Bentley
in early 1773.5 The “Green Frog Service,” as it is known, was more than merely
utilitarian: it was adorned with 1,222 views of Britain, each one unique, allow-
ing for endless study (fig. 3.7). Those who used it could enjoy its depictions of
buildings, parks, and landscapes, while at the same time admiring the educated
Anglophile tastes of its royal owner.6 The palace was a place both for pleasure
and for business. On June 3, 1779 the English ambassador in post, James Harris,
wrote to his father describing a dinner there:
4 The European Magazine (February 1782): 95–99. See Larissa Dukelskaya, “The Houghton Sale
and the Fate of a Great Collection,” in A Capital Collection. Houghton Hall and the Hermitage,
ed. Larissa Dukelskaya and Andrew Moore (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University
Press, 2002), 76, note 141. Also see Houghton Revisited: The Walpole Masterpieces from
Catherine the Great’s Hermitage, ed. Thierry Morel and Andrew Moore (London: The Royal
Academy of Arts, 2013), exhibition catalogue.
5 Wedgwood and Bentley received a deposit of a thousand pounds sterling (6,074 roubles) in
March 1773 and the vast, complex, and unique commission was completed in 1774.
6 The Green Frog Service, ed. Michael Raeburn, Ludmila Voronikhina, and Andrew Nurnberg
(London: Cacklegoose Press, 1995); Lydia Liackhova, “Wedgwood’s Green Service and the
Imperial Collections in the Hermitage,” in Allen and Dukelskaya, British Art Treasures, 116.
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76 Elizaveta Renne
We were shown [the Wedgwood service]; and this led to a conversation on

English gardening, in which the Empress is a great adept. From this we got to
Blakstone [William Blackstone], where she soon led me out of my depth; as I
believe she would many a Circuiter [i.e., a Circuit judge], being most perfectly
mistress of our Laws and Constitution. This distinction from the Sovereign
insures me the goodwill and civilities of the subjects.7
Harris’s impressions of his visit suggest that Catherine’s intentions were being
realised. Not only could she show off her expensive service and stimulate con-
versations about landscape gardening, but she could also demonstrate that she
was a truly enlightened and educated European monarch, knowledgeable in
the law and skilled in politics.
It was in the large central hall of La Grenouillère, in 1780, that the empress
dined in company with the Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II. His visit to St
Petersburg coincided with recent developments in Russia’s foreign policy for
which Catherine needed Austrian political support. The dinner was laid out
in this room, in which hung portraits of Joseph II’s mother—Maria Theresa,
Archduchess of Austria, two of his brothers (Leopold and Ferdinand), and
three of his sisters (Maria Antoinette, Maria Carolina, and Maria Amalia) with
their spouses, who between them held the reins of power in France, Spain,
Italy, and Austria. Perhaps naively, Catherine felt that in the company of his
close relatives Joseph might be persuaded to support her grand geopolitical
projects. She sought to convince him, that he, as Holy Roman Emperor of the
German nation, was duty bound to protect the interests of European Christian
peoples, heirs to the civilisation of the Romans, and that he would head the
Christian world of Western Europe, and Catherine the Great would expand her
empire to the east.8 Although the emperor did not fully believe in the possibil-
ity of a project, he was forced to make an alliance.
7 Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury, ed. by his Grandson, the
Third Earl. Second edn., vol. 1 (London: R. Bentley, 1844), 199.
8 See: Ekaterina Skvortsova, “Representing Imperial Power in Eighteenth-Century Russian
Art. The Portrait Gallery of the Chesme Palace,” in “A Century Mad and Wise:” Russia in the
Age of the Enlightenment. Papers from the IX International Conference of the Study Group on
Eighteenth-Century Russia, Leuven 2014, ed. Emmanuel Waegemans, Hans van Koningsbrugge,
Marcus Levitt, and Mikhail Ljustrov (Groningen: Netherlands Russia Centre, 2015), 455;
Elizaveta Renne, “The Chesma Palace in St. Petersburg and Catherine II’s Shifting Political
Ambitions,” paper presented at the colloquium “Palais Royaux dans l’Europe des Révolutions,”
Centre André Chastel, Paris, April 27–28, 2017; and Е. P. Renne, “Ekaterina Velikaia – soavtor
proekta galerei portretov Chesmenskogo dvortsa,” in Trudy Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha,
XCVI, Ermitazhnye chteniia pamiati V. F. Levinsona-Lessinga, 2017–2018 (St Petersburg: State
Hermitage Museum, 2018), 358.
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Figure 4.1 Sir Joshua Reynolds, The Infant Hercules Strangling Serpents, 1786, oil on canvas,
303 × 297 cm, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
For political reasons, La Grenouillère was renamed the Chesme Palace to

commemorate the Russian victory over the Turkish fleet at Chesme Bay in
1770. While taking pleasure in surrounding herself with luxury, Catherine
combined it with the need to promote the magnificence of her country and
her reign, often sending quite precise political messages wrapped up in artis-
tic packages.
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78 Elizaveta Renne
Figure 4.2
James Walker, after Johann Baptist
von Lampi the Elder, Portrait of
Prince G. A. Potemkin-Tauride, 1792,
mezzotint, third state, 42.3 × 31.8 cm, State
© THE STATE HERMITAGE
MUSEUM / PHOTO LEONARD
KHEIFETS, ALEKSEY PAKHOMOV,
SVETLANA SUETOVA, VLADIMIR
TEREBENIN
The Earl of Carysfort and the Reynolds Commission
Against this background of her emerging interest in the fine and decorative
arts of Britain, it is not surprising that Catherine took careful note when British
aristocrat and statesman John Joshua Proby, 2nd Baron Carysfort, remarked
on the sad lack in her otherwise superb Picture Gallery of any works by the
outstanding contemporary British painter Joshua Reynolds. None but an
Englishman would have noted this absence, since British painting was not
an object of particular interest to European collectors in the eighteenth cen-
tury. It should not be forgotten that the paintings by Godfrey Kneller, John
Wootton, and Charles Jervas that had been acquired with the Walpole collec-
tion in 1779 were considered mere “furniture pictures” and formed part of a
group of works added to the deal without additional payment. But in Russia
these British paintings became—along with three canvases that Catherine
purchased from Joseph Wright of Derby and later, after the death of Grigorii
Potemkin, more paintings by Reynolds, Thomas Jones, and William Marlow—
part of the English section of Catherine’s Picture Gallery. The concept of the
école anglaise appeared in the detailed description of the Hermitage published
by Johann Georgi in 1794, five years after the HMS Friendship arrived with the
- 978-3-657-79376-1
first Reynolds commissions.9 At this time, it seems, Catherine was the first,
indeed the only, continental owner of a small but significant collection of
British pictures.
Prince Grigorii Aleksandrovich Potemkin (fig. 4.2), Catherine’s close adviser
and secret husband, shared and supported the empress’s interest in Britain
and its culture. During her reign a great number of British specialists came
to work in Russia, men of many different professions, from clockmakers to
gardeners and architects. However, apart from short stays in St Petersburg by
Edward Francis Cunningham, Richard Brompton, and Edward Miles, there
were few painters among them. In spring 1786 this fact was remarked upon
in The London Chronicle, which informed its readers that “They write from
Petersburg, that the Empress is about to establish a Society of Artists, and to
encourage public exhibitions in the city. There are several French artists there,
but no Englishman of note among them.”10
Little is known of the Russian trip undertaken in 1785–86 by John Joshua
Proby (1751–1828), created 1st Earl of Carysfort in 1789. At the age of twenty-
one, in 1772, he had inherited Elton Hall in Huntingdonshire, together with
extensive lands in Ireland and the Irish title of Baron Carysfort. Showing an
early interest in science and the arts, Carysfort took an active part in political
debates and in 1779 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1784 he was
made a Knight of St Patrick. Thrown into melancholy by the early death of his
first wife, Elizabeth Osborne, in 1783, he seems to have regained his purpose
only when given the chance to visit Russia on a special mission, the exact aim
of which remains unclear. It seems likely that it was either to gather informa-
tion about Russian military might, or to extend an existing trade treaty and
improve commercial contacts. His mission seems to have been successful and
the commission of a copy of a Nymph and Cupid painted for him by his good
friend Reynolds (fig. 4.4) presumably grew out of his excellent personal rela-
tions with Potemkin.11 Although there has always been some ambiguity as to
9 Johann Georgi, Opisanie rossiisko-imperatorskogo stolichnogo goroda Sankt-Peterburga i

dostopamiatnostei v okrestnosiakh onogo, 1794–1796, 2 vols (St Petersburg: Imperatorskii
Shliakhetnyi Sukhoputnyi Kadetskii korpus, 1794), 2: 480–81 (reprinted St Petersburg:
Liga, 1996, 362).
10 The London Chronicle, April 29–May 2, 1786.
11 In 1765 Reynolds painted John Joshua Proby, 1st Earl of Carysfort aged thirteen, with his
sister. The portrait is now at Elton Hall, Cambridge. (See also Charles Algernon Tomkins,
after Sir Joshua Reynolds, John Joshua Proby, 1st Earl of Carysfort; Elizabeth Storer (née
Proby), mezzotint, published 1866, National Portrait Gallery, London.) Since then, they
had become friends. Carysfort patronised the artist, commissioning family portraits and
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80 Elizaveta Renne
who was responsible for the commission, we now know from a letter from
Carysfort to Potemkin, cited below, that it was his own generous personal gift
to Catherine’s powerful aide and co-ruler.12
At the same time, however, Carysfort became the intermediary responsible
for commissioning two more important paintings from Reynolds, one for the
Russian monarch and the other a second painting for Potemkin. If the rumour
published by John Parkinson in his book on his travels is to be believed, Carysfort
lingered longer than planned in St Petersburg because of an affair with the wife
of the Neapolitan ambassador.13 His status ensured that he was received in the
very highest society and his name appears three times amongst those invited
to court who were listed in the Russian Court Circular—the “Kammerführer”
Journal [Kamer-fur’erskii tseremonialnyi zhurnal]. On December 4 and 14, 1785
he was among thirteen foreign ministers who attended performances in the
newly opened theatre attached to the Hermitage. That month Carysfort wrote
home to Reynolds:
Sir, if distance and length of time would be strong enough to make me forget
my friends, the fine collection of paintings that Her Imperial Majesty has most
graciously permitted me to view would prevent this happening, at least in that I
would not forget you in thinking of the art in which you so excel, and since I am
one of those who are not ashamed to show their partiality for my native land,
and for my native people, I have never visited the Hermitage without experienc-
ing some chagrin that there is no example of the English school. I could not
stop myself from making comparisons between the works of the great masters
of Antiquity and those of the President of the English Academy … I flatter myself
that it is in consequence of this that the attention of Her Majesty was turned
towards our artists. She has commissioned me to order a painting by you and
since Her Majesty wishes to give your genius free rein, she leaves the choice of
subject and the manner of painting to you. Prince Potemkin, who passed on this
order, asked me at the same time to order one for him, the subject of which he
leaves, like Her Majesty, to you.14
fancy pictures from him, including a Nymph and Cupid in 1784. Reynolds’s portrait of John
Joshua Proby, 1st Earl of Carysfort, c. 1777 is also in the Elton Hall collection.
12 John Joshua Proby, 2nd Baron Carysfort to Grigorii Potemkin, December 8, 1785, reproduced
in Elizaveta Renne, State Hermitage Museum Catalogue, Sixteenth- to Nineteenth-Century
British Painting, 175. See note 14.
13 John Parkinson, A Tour of Russia, Siberia and the Crimea 1791–1794, ed. William Collier
(London: Frank Cass, 1971), 63. The extant travel journals, 1780–94, of John Parkinson
(1754–1840) are held at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford. See https://archives.bodleian.
ox.ac.uk/repositories/2/resources/2999, accessed May 1, 2020.
14 “Monsieur, Si la distance des lieux & la longueur du Temps pourrait avoir assés d’empire
sur moi pour me faire oublier mes amis, la belle collection de peintures, que Sa Majesté
Impériale m’a gracieusement permie de voir empêcherait au moins, que je ne vous oublie
en pensant à un art dans le quel vous excellés tant, & comme je suis un de ceux qui n’ont
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It is clear that Carysfort had visited the Hermitage without the empress more
than once, but it was only in December 1785 that he had the opportunity to
talk to her personally. As there is so little information about Carysfort’s sojourn
in St Petersburg, every small detail seems precious. His name appears in the
Kammerführer Journal briefly again between June 17 and 19, 1786, when he
took part in the empress’s country walks and entertainments. On June 17 he
was among a group of foreign dignitaries invited to see the foundations of a
new palace and park—to be named “Pella” (after the birthplace of Alexander
the Great)— recently laid out not far from St Petersburg, further up the Neva.
Catherine commissioned the palace, designed by the architect Ivan Starov, in
1785 for her elder grandson Alexander, whom she had named after Alexander
the Great and whom she dreamed of installing on the throne on her death,
bypassing her legal successor, her much despised son Paul. The invitation to a
group of foreigners shows her, once again, using a pleasure palace to demon-
strate her political intentions.15 The empress deigned to play lotto from six in
the afternoon until after nine. After this a small and select group of foreign-
ers, amongst them the Comte de Ségur and his brother, the British ambassa-
dor Alleyne FitzHerbert, Carysfort, and a certain “Mr Ellis” spent the night in
houses scattered around the grounds. The following day the entire company set
off, first to Potemkin’s dacha, where a salvo of cannons was fired, followed by
lunch and conversation. That same evening, they travelled in carriages to visit
another of Catherine’s close courtiers, Lev Naryshkin, some five versts [approx-
imately four miles] from Pella, to which they returned after playing lotto, sit-
ting at table until nearly midnight. On June 19 they all left for St Petersburg
by boat. Few though they are, these references in the Kammerführer Journal
pas honte de montrer de la partialité pour ma patrie, & pour tout ce qui y appartient, je
n’ai jamais visité l’Hermitage sans avoir du chagrin par ce qu’il n’y avoit pas d’échantillon
de l’école Angloise, je ne pouvois m’empêcher de faire des comparaisons entre les
ouvrages des grands maitres de l’antiquite & ceux du président de l’académie Angloise …
je me flatte, que c’est en conséquence de cela que l’attention de Sa Majesté a été tournée
vers nos artistes. Elle m’a donné la commission d’ordonner un Tableau fait par vous &
comme S : M : veut donner pleine liberté à votre genie. Elle laisse le choix du sujet & de
la manière de le peindre à Vous. Le Prince Potemkin qui m’a signifié cet ordre me pria
en même Temps d’ordonner un pour Lui dont le sujet il laisse à choisir comme S :M : à
Vous.” John Joshua Proby, 2nd Baron Carysfort to Joshua Reynolds, December [n.d.], 1785,
Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Drevnikh Aktov (hereafter, “RGADA”) [Russian State
Archive of Ancient Acts], Moscow, f. 17, op., 1, d. 291; for the full text, see Elizaveta Renne,
State Hermitage Museum Catalogue, Sixteenth- to Nineteenth-Century British Painting, 175.
15 In 1789 construction was in full progress, but later work was suspended due to the
Russo-Swedish and Russo-Turkish wars. In December 1796, following his mother’s death,
Paul I ordered that all buildings in Pella be demolished.
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82 Elizaveta Renne
Figure 4.3 John Raphael Smith, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, A Snake in the Grass, stipple
engraving printed in brown on paper, published by S. W. Fores, 1802, State
- 978-3-657-79376-1
indicate that Carysfort was well received at court, possibly also thanks to his
friendship with Fitzherbert.
After he returned to London, Carysfort visited Reynolds’s studio and
observed how work was progressing on the painting for the empress, The Infant
Hercules Strangling Serpents (fig. 4.1). The canvas would take the artist two
years to complete. It was probably during the same visit that Carysfort asked
Reynolds to make the copy, destined for Potemkin, of the Nymph and Cupid
painted for Carysfort and shown at the Royal Academy to great acclaim in 1785.
Reynolds himself called the semi-naked beauty thus depicted a “nymph” and
gave the picture the title Half Consenting. But in 1787 John Raphael Smith pub-
lished a print entitled A Snake in the Grass (fig. 4.3), and it was under this name
that the painting became widely known. Along with the alternative title, Cupid
Untying the Zone of Venus, this perfectly reflects its frivolous subject-matter.
One of the most popular of Reynolds’s works, A Snake in the Grass (fig. 4.4)
was the most frequently copied of all his paintings, both during and after his
lifetime. Reynolds himself repeated the original twice, each time using new
technical methods. As a result, the three versions look very different. In 1828
the original work passed to Sir Robert Peel, and, with his collection, was bought
for The National Gallery in 1871.16 The copy made by the artist for Potemkin
remains in the State Hermitage Museum, and the other is in Sir John Soane’s
Museum in London.
A Snake in the Grass is a “double-entendre” picture of the kind that Reynolds
painted for particular aristocratic clients, who might understand and appreci-
ate the euphemistic intellectual game-playing that such works invited. Other
paintings of this kind include the famous pendant portraits of the members of
the Society of Dilettanti, painted between 1777 and 1778, that hung on either
side of the fireplace at Brooks’s Сlub in St James’s Street. Both paintings were
packed with hidden erotic references. There were many other Reynolds com-
positions with more blatant allusions, such as Cupid as a Link-boy (c. 1771) and
Mercury as a Cut Purse (1774), or portraits of well-known courtesans such as
Kitty Fisher as Cleopatra (1759) and Mrs Abington as “Miss Prue” (1771).17
The allusions in courtesan portraits were thinly veiled: Mrs Abington’s fin-
ger, softly touching her lips, or the ‘O’ made by Kitty Fisher’s thumb and fore-
finger as she holds Cleopatra’s pearl, a burning torch, or an empty purse—all
were erotic symbols understood by those in the know. It is not by chance, then,
that we see a snake hidden in the grass—a phallic symbol—and the somewhat
16 The painting is now in the collection of Tate Britain, London.

17 See Robin Simon, “Reynolds and the double-entendre. The Society of Dilettanti portraits,”
The British Art Journal 3, no. 1 (Autumn 2001), 69–77.
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84 Elizaveta Renne
unnaturally shaped and positioned thumb in the otherwise charming image of

a nymph (or Venus figure) in A Snake in the Grass. It is unlikely that the artist
lacked the technical ability to paint the nymph’s right hand correctly, instead
choosing that it covered her face both shyly and coquettishly. Reynolds had
presumably heard tales of Potemkin’s amatory adventures from Carysfort and
also from James Harris, whose portrait he painted when the latter returned
from his stint as ambassador to Russia in 1785.
Not only had Harris been able to observe Catherine’s powerful adviser at
first hand, but their numerous meetings, often in very informal settings, were
described in his Diaries and Correspondence, published in 1844.18 In these,
Harris frequently calls Potemkin his “friend” and refers to the prince’s consid-
erable talents. The choice of the Nymph and Cupid as the subject for Potemkin
was undoubtedly deliberate, and probably determined by Carysfort, who
regarded Potemkin as an admirer of the fine arts. Although historians have
previously claimed that the Hermitage picture lacks the motif of the snake,
close technical study undertaken in 2017 revealed traces of the head of the
treacherous reptile. Barely noticeable to the naked eye, this was perhaps partly
removed during earlier attempts to conserve the picture or was even part of a
deliberate attempt to remove or hide the erotic symbol.
Three Paintings: Creation, Reception, and Legacy
Curiously, the whole of the correspondence relating to the official commission

was conducted via Potemkin himself and not through the usual official secre-
tarial channels. Here the correspondence was initially betweeen Potemkin and
Carysfort as a private matter, and later via Vorontsov, the Russian Ambassador.
It was to Potemkin, then, that Reynolds addressed a letter of August 4, 1789, in
which the artist stated that the two pictures commissioned via Carysfort, one
for the empress and one for Potemkin, “have just been carried aboard the ship
Friendship which will take sail at any moment for St Petersburg.”19
In the same letter, Reynolds felt it necessary to explain in detail the subject
that he had chosen for the empress, which he stated consisted of an allegory
on the growing might of Russia. No doubt the reading was offered in order
18 Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris.

19 “viennent d’être portés à bord du navire le Friendship qui doit incessamment mettre à
la voile pour St. Petersbourg.” RGADA, f. 17, op. 1, d. 287; the letter is published in full in
French and English in The Letters of Sir Joshua Reynolds, ed. John Ingamells and John
Edgcumbe (London: Yale University Press, 2000), 195.
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to avoid any unfortunate misreadings. Others, however, made judgments that

were less favourable. Horace Walpole, for instance, on seeing the two snakes
being strangled by the infant Hercules, saw them as signifying the two emper-
ors killed at Catherine’s behest: her husband Peter II and the unfortunate Ivan
Antonovich (Ivan VI). Thus, Reynolds explained his purpose in creating this
painting as being in the spirit of the sublime principles that underpinned the
Old Masters. He indicated that he had based it upon a mythological text by
Pindar, rather than a historical anecdote about Queen Elizabeth at Tilbury,
or Peter the Great at Deptford docks (subjects that had been recommended
to him for the Russian commission by Hannah More and Horace Walpole).
Reynolds’s explanations apparently did not satisfy the empress, for the English
engraver James Walker, who worked at the Russian court, recorded that she
saw it as a suggestion that “her empire was still in its leading strings.”20
Although the painting did not arouse the admiration from Catherine that it
perhaps deserved, Walker, who produced a print after it published in 1791 (fig.
9.8), tells us that it was nonetheless given its place in the empress’s Picture
Gallery. Moreover, the commission from Reynolds provides evidence that she
was fully aware of the achievements of British artists.
As a reward for his labours Reynolds was sent a diamond snuff box adorned
with a portrait of the empress, inside which lay a note in Catherine’s own hand:
“For the Chevalier Reynolds, as a mark of my satisfaction on reading his excel-
lent discourses on painting.”21 The news of the gift soon spread to the British
press, which published Reynolds’s reply:
Your Imperial Majesty has left nothing undone to give all possible luster to
this most gracious mark of your protection by the magnificent present which
encloses it. This I shall carry about me as my title to distinction & which I can
never produce but with a sight of that August personage who whilst by her wise
government she contributes to the happiness of a great portion of mankind
under her dominion, is pleased to extend her favourable influence, to whatever
may decorate Life in any part of the World, that whilst I endeavour to demon-
strate my gratitude for the distinction I have received I may have further motives
20 Engraved in the Memory: James Walker, Engraver to the Empress Catherine the Great, and
His Russian Anecdotes, ed. Anthony G. Cross (Oxford and Providence, RI: Berg Publishers,
1993), 104. For more on Walker and Catherine, see the essay by Zalina Tetermazova in
Chapter 9 of this volume.
21 “Pour le Chevalier Reynolds en témoignage du contentement que j’ai ressentie à la lecture
de ses excellens discourse sur la peinture.” Catherine II to Joshua Reynolds, reproduced in
The Letters of Sir Joshua Reynolds, ed. John Ingamells and John Edgcumbe (London: Yale
University Press, 2000), 210. The letter is undated, but a letter accompanying the snuff box
sent to the Russian ambassador is dated March 5, 1790. The current location of the box is
not known; it was sold at Christie, Manson and Woods, London on March 22, 1904.
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86 Elizaveta Renne
to such gratitude by receiving accessions to my reputation, & that Posterity may

know (since now I may indulge the hope that I may be known to Posterity) that
your Imperial Majesty has deign’d to permit me to solicit the patronage of a
Sovereign to whom all the Poets, Philosophers, & Artists of the time have done
homage & whose approbation of profound veneration and attachment I am your
Majesty most humble & most devoted Servant.
J Reynolds22
The very fact that the vast canvas was intended for Catherine II turned its cre-
ation into a public event, in which the artist’s work was consistently subject
to close scrutiny. Friends, colleagues, and critics paid attention to all aspects
of its execution, which was reflected not only in Reynolds’s pocket-books and
correspondence but in the memoirs of those contemporaries who visited his
studio as work dragged on, as well as in the press, which reflected the huge
public interest in the commission. Reviews of the painting provide detailed
information about the choice of subject and the different stages during which
the concept was given visual form, with various changes to the composition
and numerous areas of repainting. So well documented is Reynolds’s work on
the painting that we can follow its progress almost daily over the course of
more than two years, from January to April 1788, when it was exhibited at the
Royal Academy. Although reviews of the painting were not always positive, the
unprecedented attention paid to the leading British painter was flattering.
The second painting (fig. 4.5), commissioned by Potemkin, was felt by
Reynolds to need no explanation. He wrote to the prince simply that: “The
subject is the Continence of Scipio, a story too well known to have any need of
description.”23 Scipio refuses a beautiful young female prisoner when he learns
that she is engaged, returning her to her fiancé with the words: “For you must
know that there are many like me in the state of Rome.”24 It was undoubt-
edly intended by the artist as a reference to Potemkin himself, whose charm
and personality enchanted all those foreigners with whom he came into con-
tact. Prince Roger de Damas, the Duke de Richelieu, Prince Charles-Joseph de
Ligne, James Harris, Count de Ségur, and Chevalier de Corberon had all noted
these qualities in the prince. (It might be observed, however, that “continence”
was perhaps a less apt description.) Apologising that the picture for Potemkin
was smaller than that for the empress, Reynolds wrote:
22 Ingamells and Edgcumbe, The Letters of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 210.

23 “Le Sujet est la continence de Scipion, histoire trop connue pour qu’il soit besoin de la
décrire.” Ibid., 195.
24 Ibid. Reynolds follows the text of Titus Livius here.
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I intended that the painting for Your Highness be of the same size as that for
Her Imperial Majesty; but I found such difficulty and inconvenience in painting
on so large a canvas that for fear of doing badly I was forced to renounce my
project and seek to redeem through care and effort the need to paint in a smaller
space.25
Although British critics accused the artist of overloading the composition,

overall, the painting was recognised as worthy of the President of the Royal
Academy and suitable for the gallery of a connoisseur. Reynolds said not a
word of the third picture, the Nymph and Cupid. But this was the subject with
which Carysfort opened his letter to Potemkin of July 12, 1789, a letter that has
never been published and is quoted here in full:
I much regret that unforeseen matters prevented me from sending Your Highness
the picture you permitted me to present to you. It shows a Nymph, whose girdle
is being untied by a Cupid. Those connoisseurs here who have seen it find it to
be of great beauty and I flatter myself that it might be worthy of Your Highness’s
approval.
I am always most touched by the extreme kindness of Her Imperial Majesty,

August patron of merit in all lands, who deigned to command me to order from
Reynolds a picture for her. This artist has exerted all his skill to produce a work
that will not be unworthy of so great a sovereign. Its subject is the young Hercules
strangling the serpents. It seems superfluous to point out to Your Highness, with
so perfect a knowledge of Ancient literature, the use the painter made of the
Odes of Pindar.
I have obeyed Your Highness’s orders in instructing Reynolds to produce another

history painting for you. The subject he has picked is the Continence of Scipio
and I hope that the work will be honoured by Your Highness’s approval.
I cannot end this letter without begging Your Highness to be certain that nothing
could efface from my heart the memory of the kindness shown to me during my
stay in Russia, and I flatter myself that amidst the tumult of war, and the glory
that your great feats have brought you, you will hear with some pleasure that the
King has appointed me to an important post in Ireland, and elevated me to a
higher rank in the Peerage.
I have the honour to be … etc.26
25 “J’avois intention que le tableau destiné à Votre Altess, fût de la même grandeur que celui
de Sa Majesté Impériale; mais Je trouvai tant de difficulté et d’embarras à peindre sur une
aussi grand toile, que crainte de faire mal, il me fallut renonçer à mon projet, et tacher
de racheter à force de soins et d’efforts, la nécessité où Je me trouvai de peindre en une
moindre espace.” Ibid.
26 “J’ai beaucoup regretté que des accidens imprevus m’ont empêché de faire parvenir plûtot
a votre Altesse le tableau qu’elle a bien voulu me permettre de lui presenter. Il représente
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88 Elizaveta Renne
Figure 4.4 Sir Joshua Reynolds, Cupid Untying the Zone of Venus, 1788, oil on canvas,
127.5 × 101 cm, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
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Figure 4.5 Sir Joshua Reynolds, The Continence of Scipio, 1789, oil on canvas, 239.5 × 165.5 cm,
State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
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90 Elizaveta Renne
A reference to the third picture can also be found in Reynolds’s account

book: “June 14, 1788 Lord Carisfort [sic], for the Nymph, to be sent to Prince
Potemkin / 105.00 guineas.”27
Both the Nymph and Cupid and The Continence of Scipio joined Potemkin’s
already extensive collection in the Shepelev House, hard by the Winter Palace
and the Raphael Loggias, on a site that has been occupied since the middle of
the nineteenth century by the New Hermitage building. On the prince’s death
in 1791, Catherine acquired his property from his heirs and his valuable pic-
tures were added to her gallery. In the inventory of the Potemkin collection
compiled in 1792, The Continence of Scipio the African by Reynolds occupies
first place, with a value of 2,500 roubles, on a par with paintings by the Old
Masters Pietro da Cortona, Luca Giordano, and Peter Paul Rubens. The Nymph
and Cupid appears under no. 106 as Venus seated, playing with Cupid, who pulls
une Nymphe, dont un Cupidon détache la ceinture. Les connoisseurs qui l’ont vu içi l’ont
trouvé d’une grande beauté, et m’ont flatté qu’il pourroit mériter l’approbation de votre
Altesse.
Je suis toujours pénétré de l’extrême bonté de sa Majesté Imperiale, l’Auguste protec-
trice du mérite dans tout les Pays, qui a daigné me commander d’ordonner a Reynolds de
peindre un tableau pour elle. Cet artiste a épuisé son talent pour produire un ouvrage qui
pourroit ne pas être indigne d’une si grande souveraine. Le sujet en est le jeune Hercule
qui étrangle les serpens. Il paroit superflu de faire remarquer à votre Altesse, qui a une
connoissance si parfaite de la littérature ancienne, le secours que le peintre a sçu tirer des
Odes de Pindar.
J’ai obéi aux ordres de votre Altesse, en commandant à Reynolds de faire aussi un
tableau d’histoire pour vous. Le sujet qu’il a traité est la continence de Scipion, et j’espère
que l’ouvrage sera honoré de l’approbation de votre Altesse.
Je ne puis mettre fin à cette lettre sans supplier votre Altesse d’être persuadée que rien
ne pourra effacer de mon coeur le souvenir des bontés qu’elle a eu pour moi, pendant
mon séjour en Russie; et je me flatte, qu’au milieu du tumulte de la guerre, et de la gloire
que ses grands actions lui ont acquise, elle entendra, avec quelque plaisir, que le Roi m’a
destiné à un poste considérable en Irlande, et littérature à un rang plus elevé parmi les
Pairs.
J’ai l’honneur …, etc.”
(Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Voennyi Arkhiv (hereafter “RGVA”) [Russian State Military
Historical Archive], Correspondence between John Joshua Proby, Lord Carysfort, and
Grigorii Potemkin, f. 52, op. 2, d. 89, ll. 91–92.) A short extract of the letter was published
in Simon Sebag Montefiore, Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin (St Martin’s Press,
New York, 2001), 307. I would like to thank Alexandra Gent for helping me to obtain the
full text.
27 “The Ledgers of Sir Joshua Reynolds,” transcribed by Malcolm Cormack, The Walpole
Society 42 (1970): 149.
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at her clothing, with a value of 250 roubles.28 The prices allocated in this inven-
tory thus indicate that Reynolds’s pictures were valued highly in Catherine’s
time.
After the empress’s death, during the reign of her son Paul I, the works were
moved from the picture gallery. The Infant Hercules was placed in storage, but
the other two paintings by Reynolds were hung in the rooms of Paul’s wife,
Empress Maria Feodorovna. A drawing by their son, Nicholas I, shows The
Continence of Scipio hanging above a canapé in his mother’s Crimson Room.29
The Nymph and Cupid hung in her boudoir.30 Today the three Reynolds paint-
ings occupy an important place in the Hermitage Picture Gallery. Examples of
his work are rare outside English-speaking countries, which makes them all the
more remarkable. They also provide tangible evidence of eighteenth-century
cultural diplomacy and of a high period in relations between Britain and
Russia, relations that have passed through many different, at times extremely
complex periods.
Translated by Catherine Phillips
Bibliography
Archives
Archives of the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, f. I, op. VI A, 1797, d. 131 and
143, no. 39. Catalogue raisonné des Tableaux qui se trouvent dans le Cabinet de Sa
Majesté l’Impératrice fait en 1797.
Correspondence between Joshua John Proby, Lord Carysfort, and Grigorii Potemkin,
Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Voennyi Arkhiv [Russian State Military Historical
Archive], f. 52, op. 2, d. 89, ll. 91–92.
28 “Vénus assise et joue avec Cupidon, qui la tire par son habit” (“Opis’ domov i dvizhimogo
imushchestva kniazia Potemkina Tavricheskogo …,” Chteniia v Imperatorskom obshchestve
istorii i drevnostei Rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom Universitet, book 4 [Moscow: A. N. Popova,
1891], 43.)
29 Archives of the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, f. 1, op. II, 1844, d. 3, ff. 12–15, Opis’
delam II otdeleniia Ermitazha 1844 g. i perepiska s Ego Svetlost’iu Ministrom dvora.
30 Archives of the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, f. I, op. VI A, 1797, d. 131 and
143, no. 39, Catalogue raisonné des Tableaux qui se trouvent dans le Cabinet de Sa Majesté
l’Impératrice fait en 1797.
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Archives of the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, f. 1, op. II, 1844, d. 3, ff. 12–15.
Opis’ delam II otdeleniia Ermitazha 1844 g. i perepiska s Ego Svetlost’iu Ministrom
dvora.
Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Drevnikh Aktov [Russian State Archive of Ancient
Acts], Moscow, f. 17, op., 1, d. 287, 291.
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Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury, ed. by his
Grandson, the Third Earl. Second edition. London: Richard Bentley, New Burlington
Street, 1844.
Georgi, Johann. Opisanie rossiisko-imperatorskogo stolichnogo goroda Sankt-Peterburga
i dostopamiatnostei v okrestnosiakh onogo, 1794–1796. 2 vols. St Petersburg:
Imperatorskii Shliakhetnyi Sukhoputnyi Kadetskii korpus, 1794. Reprinted St
Petersburg: Liga, 1996.
Grot, Ia., ed. Pis’ma Imperatritsy Ekateriny II k Grimmu (1774–1796). Sbornik
Imperatorskogo Russkogo Istoricheskogo Obshchestva. 148 vols. St Petersburg: Tip.
Imperatorskoi Akademii nauk, 1867–1916.
Parkinson, John. A Tour of Russia, Siberia and the Crimea 1791–1794, edited by William
Collier. London: Frank Cass, 1971.
“The Ledgers of Sir Joshua Reynolds,” transcribed by Malcolm Cormack. The Walpole
Society 42 (1970): 149.
The Travel journals, 1780–94, of John Parkinson (1754–1840). The Bodleian Libraries,
Oxford. https://archives.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/repositories/2/resources/2999, accessed
May 1, 2020.
Secondary Sources
Allen, Brian, and Larissa Dukelskaya, eds. British Art Treasures from Russian Imperial
Collections. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1996.
Chteniia v Imperatorskom obshchestve istorii i drevnostei Rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom
Universitet, book 4. Moscow: A. N. Popova, 1891.
Cross, Anthony G., ed. Engraved in the Memory: James Walker, Engraver to the Empress
Catherine the Great, and His Russian Anecdotes. Oxford and Providence, RI: Berg
Publishers, 1993.
Dukelskaya, Larissa. “The Houghton Sale and the Fate of a Great Collection.” In
A Capital Collection. Houghton Hall and the Hermitage, edited by Larissa Dukelskaya
and Andrew Moore. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2002, 51.
Dukelskaya, Larissa A., and Elizaveta P. Renne. The Hermitage Catalogue of Western
European Painting: British Painting, Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries. Florence:
Giunti Martello Editore, 1990.
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Hilles, Frederick W. “Sir Joshua and the Empress Catherine.” In Eighteenth-Century

Studies in Honor of Donald F. Hyde, edited by William H. Bond, 267–77. New York:
Grolier Club, 1970.
Ingamells, John, and John Edgcumbe, eds. The Letters of Sir Joshua Reynolds. London:
Yale University Press, 2000, 195.
Krol’, Aleksandra E. Dzhoshua Reinol’ds: “Mladenets Gerakl.” Leningrad: State Hermitage
Museum, 1959.
Liackhova, Lydia. “Wedgwood’s Green Service and the Imperial Collections in the
Hermitage.” In Allen and Dukelskaya, British Art Treasures, 116–23.
Montefiore, Simon Sebag. Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin. St Martin’s Press, New
York, 2001.
Moore, Andrew, and Thierry Morel, eds. Houghton Revisited: The Walpole Masterpieces
from Catherine the Great’s Hermitage. London: The Royal Academy of Arts, 2013.
Exhibition catalogue.
Nurnberg, Andrew, Michael Raeburn, and Ludmila Voronikhina, eds. The Green Frog
Service. London: Cacklegoose Press, 1995.
Postle, Martin. Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Subject Pictures. Cambridge: Cambridge
Postle, Martin. “Sir Joshua Reynolds and the Court of Catherine the Great.” In Allen
and Dukelskaya, British Art Treasures, 56–67.
Renne, Elizaveta P. State Hermitage Museum Catalogue, Sixteenth- to Nineteenth-
Century British Painting. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2011.
Renne, Elizaveta. “The Chesma Palace in St. Petersburg and Catherine II’s Shifting
Political Ambitions.” Paper presented at the colloquium “Palais Royaux dans
l’Europe des Révolutions,” Centre André Chastel, Paris, April 27–28, 2017.
Renne, Е. P. “Ekaterina Velikaia – soavtor proekta galerei portretov Chesmenskogo
dvortsa.” In Trudy Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha, XCVI, Ermitazhnye chteniia
pamiati V. F. Levinsona-Lessinga, 2017–2018. St Petersburg: The State Hermitage
Museum, 2018, 358–70.
Simmons, J. S. G. “Samuel Johnson ‘On the Banks of the Neva’: A Note on a Picture by
Reynolds in the Hermitage.” In Johnson, Boswell and their Circle. Essays Presented
to Lawrence Fitzroy Powell in Honour of his Eighty-fourth Birthday, 208–14. Oxford:
Simon, Robin. “Reynolds and the double-entendre. The Society of Dilettanti portraits.”
The British Art Journal 3, no. 1 (Autumn 2001): 69–77.
Skvortsova, Ekaterina. “Representing Imperial Power in Eighteenth-Century Russian
Art. The Portrait Gallery of the Chesme Palace.” In “A Century Mad and Wise”:
Russia in the Age of the Enlightenment. Papers from the IX International Conference
of the Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia, Leuven 2014, edited by Emmanuel
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Waegemans, Hans van Koningsbrugge, Marcus Levitt, and Mikhail Ljustrov, 455–69.
Groningen: Netherlands Russia Centre, 2015.
The London Chronicle, April 29–May 2, 1786.
The European Magazine (February 1782): 95–99.
Waegemans, Emmanuel, Hans van Koningsbrugge, Marcus Levitt, and Mikhail Ljustrov,
eds. “A Century Mad and Wise”: Russia in the Age of the Enlightenment. Papers from
the IX International Conference of the Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia,
Leuven 2014. Groningen: Netherlands Russia Centre, 2015.
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Part II
The Agency of Gifts
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Chapter 5
“Give with One Hand and Take with the Other:”

British Diplomatic Gifts to Russia, 1795–97
Ekaterina Heath
After the “Ochakov crisis” of 1791, Russia and Britain were on the verge of war.1
In 1788 Russia had seized the Ochakov fortress from the Ottoman Empire, and
the British Prime Minister, William Pitt (1759–1806), had attempted to forc-
ibly secure its return.2 Pitt perceived Russian successes in the former Ottoman
territories, such as Ochakov and Bender, as threats to British trade interests
in the Baltic Sea, but he was quickly forced to withdraw his ultimatum when
the idea of war with Russia became unpopular among the British public.3
Relationships between the two countries improved a few years later, due to
their shared antipathy for Revolutionary France, which entered into war with
Britain in 1793. The British Government hoped to persuade Catherine II (“the
Great”) to join the military coalition against France and commit Russian
troops to battle.4 In addition, the British Ambassador to St Petersburg wished
to facilitate the signing of a long-term trade agreement that would give British
merchants Baltic trade preferences similar to those that had been granted
* I would like to thank Elena Abramova for her research in the Moscow archives.
1 John Ehrman, The British Government and Commercial Negotiations with Europe 1783–1793
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 130; Jeremy Black, British Foreign Policy in an
Age of Revolution, 1783–1793 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 285.
2 Paul C. Webb, “Sea Power in the Ochakov Affair of 1791,” The International History Review 2,
no. 1 (January 1980): 13–33.
3 The British Government sought to diversify the sources of its naval supplies, which previ-
ously came primarily from Russia, by adding Poland as a new trading partner. However, Pitt
was fearful that by controlling former Ottoman territories like Ochakov and Bender, Russia
would be able to control the rivers Bug and Dniester, the outlets through which Polish goods
arrived at the Black Sea. According to his calculations, Russia could offer Polish merchants
low transit duties to draw Polish naval stores to the Black Sea instead of the Baltic, which
would leave Britain with no supplies crucial for the maintenance of its fleet. (Webb, “Sea
Power,” 16.)
4 David Horn, Great Britain and Europe in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1967), 232. See also Sobranie Traktatov i Konventsii, zakliuchennykh Rossiei s inostrannymi der-
zhavami, 15 vols, ed. Fedor Martens (St Petersburg: Tipografiia ministerstva putei soobshche-
niia, 1895), vols 9–12 (Traktaty s Angliei), 9: 483.

98 Ekaterina Heath
Figure 5.1 Charles Turner, after Sir Thomas Lawrence, Charles Whitworth, 1st Earl Whitworth,
published by Colnaghi & Co., mezzotint, December 1, 1814, 561 × 406 mm (plate),
607 × 444 mm (paper), National Portrait Gallery, London.
© 2019 NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
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British Diplomatic Gifts to Russia 99
Figure 5.2
The Herschel telescope given to
Catherine II in the Pulkovo observatory,
1930s, photograph, reproduced in
Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniia,
Issue IV, ed. P. Kulikovskii (Moscow:
Izdatel’stvo Fiziko-Matematicheskoi
literatury, 1958), 279.
under the Treaty of 1766.5 These delicate circumstances required pressure to be

applied to Russia in matters of trade and war. Consequently, during the period
of 1795–97, the British Government sent a range of diplomatic gifts to Russia:
a Herschel telescope for Empress Catherine II; hundreds of exotic plants from
the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew for Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna; and
six horses for Emperor Paul I.
Diplomacy has been defined as doing and saying “the nastiest thing in the
nicest way,” and this paradoxical aspect of the practice came to the fore in this
series of gifts.6 During the eighteenth century, British diplomats frequently
relied on the “symbolic violence” of gift-giving to force opposing powers to give
their country concessions in return for gifts.7 They pursued military and trade
goals by exploiting a sense of obligation to reciprocate.8 An analysis of the gifts
5 Martens, Sobranie traktatov, 9: 242.

6 Susan Ratcliffe, “Isaac Goldberg.” Oxford Essential Quotations. Oxford University Press,
2012, http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191735240.001.0001/q-oro-
00004920, accessed August 29, 2020.
7 On the use of symbolic violence in diplomacy, see Alisher Faizullaev, Symbolic Insult in
Diplomacy. A Subtle Game of Diplomatic Slap (Leiden: Brill Nijhoff, 2018), https://doi.org/
10.1163/9789004354142_002.
8 Cynthia Klekar, “‘Prisoners in Silken Bonds’: Obligation, Trade, and Diplomacy in English
Voyages to Japan and China,” Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 6, no. 1 (Spring–
Summer 2006): 84–105.
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100 Ekaterina Heath
sent to Russia between 1795 and 1797 reveals that they signified veiled threats
and criticisms to ensure that British envoys could conduct future negotiations
from a position of power. This chapter argues that the choice of gifts of plants,
technology, and animals represented a high point of this strategy, abandon-
ing the preceding tradition of sending semantically positive or neutral gifts of
silverware and art.9
The first two gifts under discussion were initiated in 1793 by the British
Ambassador to St Petersburg, Sir Charles Whitworth (1752–1825) (fig. 5.1), and
on the face of it signalled an improvement of diplomatic relations between the
two countries.10 Both the telescope (fig. 5.2) and the plants (figs. 5.9 and 5.10),
celebrated British imperial power through its science. The shift from giving
precious items of jewellery to plants and telescopes reflected recent changes
in Britain’s understanding of itself and its role in the world. It has been argued
that from the late seventeenth century, diplomatic gift exchange in Europe was
based on the natural riches and artistic developments of different countries.11
The new focus on science and economics in society at large found its reflection
in Britain’s courtly gift-giving rituals.
The telescope and the live plants arrived at Kronstadt on board the HMS
Venus on July 29, 1795 and were addressed to Empress Catherine II and Grand
Duchess Maria Feodorovna respectively. The telescope was delivered to the
Winter Palace, Catherine’s imperial residence in St Petersburg, and the plants
for Maria Feodorovna were sent to the estate at Pavlovsk. The double nature of
this gift turned it into a metaphor for the knowledge of the heavens and power
over earthly resources that could be gained through an alliance with the British
Empire.
9 Maija Jansson, “Measured Reciprocity: English Ambassadorial Gift Exchange in the

Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” Journal of Early Modern History 9, nos. 3–4
(2005): 348–70.
10 On the gift of plants, see: Lord Grenville to King George III, November 15, 1793,
William L. Clements Library, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbour, Fortescue Ms,
Correspondence of King George the Third Transcripts, vol. 3; Harold Carter, “Sir Joseph
Banks and the plant collection from Kew sent to the Empress Catherine II of Russia 1795,”
Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) Historical Series 4, no. 5 (1974). On the
gift of the telescope, see Lord Grenville to Charles Whitworth, May 9, 1795, The National
Archives, London (hereafter “TNA”), FO 65/38. On the gift of horses, see Lord Grenville to
Charles Whitworth, April 11, 1797, TNA, FO 65/37.
11 Jansson, “Measured Reciprocity,” 349.
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Figure 5.3 Benjamin Smith, after William Beechey, His most gracious Majesty King George
the third … Painted by Sr. Wm. Beechey R.A., 1804, etching and stipple, Wellcome
Library, London.
WELLCOME COLLECTION / CREATIVE COMMONS CC BY 4.0
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102 Ekaterina Heath
Figure 5.4
George Moutard Woodward, The Windsor
astronomers, making observations and
calculations respecting the conjunction
of the English and Russian comets,
1791, published by William Holland,
hand-coloured etching, 448 × 342 mm,
The British Museum, London.
© TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH
MUSEUM, LONDON
Mastery over the Heavens
The telescope from King George III (fig. 5.2) was a symbol of British ambi-
tion to understand and harness knowledge of the celestial world. Invented by
William Herschel, it doubled the size of the visible Solar System for the spec-
tator, and his equipment was considered the best in the world.12 Telescopes
were a relatively common diplomatic gift from Britain and had been sent
to countries as far away as the Ottoman and Qing Empires.13 Just two years
earlier, in an unsuccessful attempt to improve the conditions of trade with
China, Ambassador George Macartney had gifted a Herschel telescope to the
Qianlong Emperor.14
12 Michael Hoskin, Discoverers of the Universe: William and Caroline Herschel (Princeton, NJ,
and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2011), 51.
13 See Michael Talbot, British-Ottoman Relations, 1661–1807: Commerce and Diplomatic
Practice in Eighteenth-century Istanbul (Martlesham: Boydell and Brewer, 2017), 133, and
Cynthia Klekar, “Prisoners in Silken Bonds.”
14 John L. Cranmer-Byng, “Lord Macartney’s Embassy to Peking in 1793,” Journal of Oriental
Studies 4 (1957–58): 117–80.
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The gift of a telescope promoted George III and his wife Queen Charlotte’s
enlightened patronage of astronomy.15 In Britain, this perception of them
was so common that during the Ochakov crisis a satirical print by George
Woodward (fig. 5.4) pictured the king watching the potential collision of
comets representing his Prime Minister William Pitt and Catherine the Great
through a telescope. This print highlights the fact that telescopes were associ-
ated with deeper knowledge and understanding during this period. According
to the print, the telescope literally opened the king’s eyes to the danger of the
policies of his protégé.
The telescope’s luxurious materials and ground-breaking design conveyed
a series of messages about the British Empire and its economic basis. Its tube
was made from mahogany, which at the time stood as one of the most pow-
erful symbols of imperial expansion.16 This timber ensured the profitability
of West Indian trade, as it was perfect for filling the hulls of ships that were
returning to Britain empty after the sale of African slaves. Unlike sugar, it did
not spoil in transit or in storage.17 The timber’s exotic origins, deep colour, and
strength led it to become the most popular elite furniture material during this
period. As with the gift of plants, the material of the telescope’s tube could
be viewed solely from the point of view of its economic potential. The British
Government closely monitored the trade in mahogany, highlighting its strong
interest in this important domestic and export industry. In 1787 it published
the Free Ports Act, in which the promotion of mahogany imports was spe-
cifically mentioned.18 In 1795, the same year that the telescope was given to
Catherine, the import duty on mahogany was reintroduced.19 The increased
profitability of trade in mahogany allowed the Government to turn it into a
source of income. Over time, the timber would be linked to the concept of
“Britishness.”20 Such associations derived from trade and military competition
between Spain, Britain, and France in the Caribbean region from where the
timber was exported.
15 Michael Hoskin, “George III’s Purchase of Herschel Reflectors,” Journal for the History of
Astronomy 39, no. 1 (2008): 1, https://doi.org/10.1177/002182860803900107.
16 Adam Bowett, “The English Mahogany Trade 1700–1793” (Ph.D dissertation, Brunel
University, 1996), http://bucks.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/9639/, accessed May 20, 2020.
17 Jennifer Anderson, “Nature’s Currency: The Atlantic Mahogany Trade and the
Commodification of Nature in the Eighteenth Century,” Early American Studies 2, no. 1
(Spring 2004): 47–80.
18 Frances Armytage, The Free Port System in the British West Indies: A Study in Commercial
Policy, 1766–1822 (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1953).
19 Bowett, “The English Mahogany Trade,” 135.
20 Ibid., vii.
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104 Ekaterina Heath
The shape of the telescope’s tube suggested the potential of science to

revive and renew the economy and the country’s future. It had an octagonal
shape—the octagon serving as a Christian symbol of resurrection.21 This sig-
nificance was compounded with the link between the ability to see and the
notion of power implied by the telescope.22 An ability to peer out into the sky
has been an important component of monarchical self-presentation since
King Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715). His minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, proclaimed
when opening the Paris Observatory in 1671: “Triumphal arch for the conquest
of the Earth, Observatory for the Heavens.”23 Louis XIV believed that to be king
meant “to have one’s eyes open to the whole Earth, to learn each hour the news
concerning every province and every nation.”24 Superior knowledge enabled
better decision-making and the ability to change the country for the better.
Like the Herschel telescope, the Versailles Menagerie, where Louis XIV sur-
veyed and ordered nature, was built in the shape of an octagon.25
The telescope’s wooden case communicated its connection to George III
in another respect—its outer tube and support were made by the king’s cabi-
net maker.26 This assured the high quality and refined elegance of the finished
product, demonstrating the growing prestige of astronomy in the British
Empire. By receiving a telescope made by Herschel, a person acquired a piece
of equipment that connected them both to the British intellectual milieu and
to the monarchical household. The ground-breaking mirrors supported by the
elegant wooden tube signified that the success of science was directly depen-
dent on the patronage system established by the British crown.
In spite of all these positive connotations, this diplomatic present had a highly
contested status from its conception to its subsequent reception in Russia. For
Herschel and his patron, George III, the gift had a complex personal meaning. In
1793, Herschel had read an article by Anders Lexell (1740–84), a member of the
21 As Jay Kappraff has noted, “the star octagon, an ecclesiastical emblem, signifies resurrec-
tion. In medieval number symbolism, eight signified cosmic equilibrium and immortal-
ity.” Jay Kappraff, Beyond Measure: A Guided Tour through Nature, Myth and Number (River
Edge, NJ: World Scientific, 2002), 127.
22 Michel Foucault stated that observation served as a form of mastery. See Michel Foucault,
“The Eye of Power,” in Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge. Selected interviews and other
writings, 1972–1977 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980), 148.
23 Peter Burke, The Fabrication of Louis XIV (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 74.
24 A King’s Lessons in Statecraft: Louis XIV: Letters to His Heirs with Introduction and Notes by
Jean Longnon, trans. Herbert Wilson (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1970), 48–51.
25 Louise E. Robbins, Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots: Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-
Century Paris (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2002), 41.
26 The Herschel Archive, Royal Astronomical Society, London, October 29, 1783, MS
Herschel W.7/8. “I was desired by the King to get some made for those who wished to have
them. Getting the woodwork done by his Majesty’s cabinetmaker, I fitted up five 10 feet
telescopes for the King, and very soon found a great demand for 7 feet reflectors.”
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Figure 5.5
The Female Philosopher, smelling out the
Comet, 1790, hand-coloured etching,
published by R. Hawkins, The British
Museum, London.
MUSEUM, LONDON
St Petersburg Academy of Sciences. This had argued that the name of Herschel’s
newly discovered star, The Star of George III (Georgium Sidus), was inappropri-
ate and needed to be replaced with the name Uranus, as all the other planets
were named after gods.27 Herschel went to see the Russian Ambassador, Count
Semen Vorontsov, to complain about an “injustice suffered by him because he
[had] called it a planet of King George in honour of the King of England.”28 The
Academy of Sciences rejected Herschel’s complaints by pointing out that the
name Uranus has “already been accepted by some academies and scholars and
was likely to be accepted by everyone.”29 In this context, sending a Herschel tele-
scope on behalf of George III communicated a desire to reassert Herschel’s pre-
eminence. This was an extension of Herschel’s practice of sending telescopes to
leading European astronomers to prove the validity of his discoveries.30
27 [Anders Lexell], “Recherches sur la nouvelle Planète découverte par M. Herschel et nom-
mée par lui Georgium Sidus,” in Acta Academiae Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitanae.
Tom I. Histoire de L’Académie Impériale des Sciences de St. Petersbourg (St Petersburg: Tip.
Imperatorskoi Akademii nauk, 1783), 69.
28 Protokoly zasedanii konferentsii imperatorskoi akademii nauk s 1725 po 1803 goda, 4 vols
(St Petersburg: Tip. Imperatorskoi Akademii nauk, 1897–1911), 4: 336.
29 Ibid.
30 John Spaight, “‘For the Good of Astronomy’: The Manufacture, Sale, and Distant
Use of William Herschel’s Telescopes,” Journal for the History of Astronomy 35, no. 1
(February 2004): 45–69, https://doi.org/10.1177/002182860403500102.
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106 Ekaterina Heath
Sending a telescope to a woman was not free from potentially negative

connotations either. Indeed, Catherine II and her friend Countess Ekaterina
Dashkova were the only women ever to acquire a Herschel telescope.31
Dashkova ordered a much smaller, seven-foot-long telescope in 1787, for the
needs of the Academy of Sciences, of which she was president.32 Receiving
such a telescope made a woman exceptional, yet simultaneously a subject
of potential criticism for taking science too seriously and overstepping the
boundaries of accepted behaviour. This attitude towards women engaged in
astronomy is captured in a satirical print from the 1790s depicting Herschel’s
sister, Caroline (fig. 5.5). The artist deliberately distorts reality to humiliate a
woman who had dared to contribute to astronomy, rather than just enjoy it
as a form of polite entertainment. Caroline Herschel is known for discover-
ing comets using her brother’s twenty-foot telescope—the first was called “the
first lady’s comet,” and made her famous.33 The image was made just as she
discovered her third comet, when she had been described as “the most noble
and worthy priestess of the new heavens.”34 Caroline is shown kneeling by the
telescope, signifying her subordinate position. In contrast, satirical depictions
of male astronomers would show them with slightly bent knees but never
with their knees on the ground.35 And Caroline had in any case worked with
a telescope designed by her brother for use while standing. She is shown as
an overly emotional woman, unsuited for the study of astronomy, who clasps
her hands tight with excitement after witnessing the flatulence of a cherub,
which she interprets as a comet. Similarly, the painting Astronomy (c. 1784)
by Boris Sukhodolskii (fig. 5.6), which was based on an earlier British print,
communicated to Russian women the expected models of behaviour around
31 See the list of Herschel’s customers in ibid., 51–53.

32 “A 7ft telescope of any sort, for the Princess of Daskow [Dashkova] may be ready in
3 months after it is ordered.” A letter from William Herschel to Rev. Mr Warde, The British
Museum, January 6, 1788, contains a list of telescope prices. See Royal Astronomical
Society Herschel MS W. I/I, reproduced in Spaight, “For the Good of Astronomy,” 58.
33 Emily Winterburn, “Learned modesty and the first lady’s comet: a commentary on
Caroline Herschel (1787) ‘An account of a new comet’,” Philosophical Transactions of The
Royal Society A: Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences 373, no. 2039 (April 13,
2015), https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2014.0210.
34 Emily Winterburn, “The actions of a well-trained Puppy-Dog: Caroline Herschel’s Modest
and Useful Life,” in The Scientific Legacy of William Herschel, ed. Clifford Cunningham
(Basel: Springer, 2018), 289–90.
35 Thomas Rowlandson, John Bull making observations on the comet, 1807, hand-coloured
etching, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/
collection/search/811320, accessed May 19, 2020.
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Figure 5.6 Boris Sukhodolskii, Astronomy, c. 1754, oil on canvas, 210 × 100 cm, State Tretyakov
Gallery, Moscow.
ALBUM / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
astronomical instruments.36 Men are depicted practising astronomy, while

one of them holds a telescope for a woman, mediating her access to science.
Moreover, the telescope points not at the sky but at a young couple wandering
in the garden, reinforcing the idea that women should avoid science and focus
on relationships and gossip.
There is no doubt that the senders of the telescope took into consideration
this gendered attitude. The gift was meant to communicate that they consid-
ered the empress an exception to the general rule. This interpretation is sup-
ported by the fact that both Catherine II and Dashkova cultivated an image
of themselves as partially masculine, which gave them a claim to superior sta-
tus at the Russian court.37 Furthermore, Catherine’s interest in telescopes was
a part of a long tradition established by female rulers like Anna Ioannovna
36 The earlier print is Astronomy: a number of ladies and gentlemen using telescopes and
celestial globes, in a landscape of ruined classical architecture, anonymous engraving,
c. 1720, Wellcome Collection, London. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/a6jt4tr6,
accessed May 19, 2020.
37 On Catherine II’s use of masculinity, see Richard S. Wortman, Scenarios of Power: Myth
and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy from Peter the Great to the Abdication of Nicholas II—
New Abridged One-Volume Edition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006): 59. On
Dashkova, see Anthony Cross, “Contemporary British Responses (1762–1810) to the per-
sonality and career of Princess Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova,” Oxford Slavonic Papers
27 (1994): 41–61, and Alexander Woronzoff-Dashkoff, “Disguise and Gender in Princess
Dashkova’s Memoires,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 33, no. 1 (1991): 62–74.
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108 Ekaterina Heath
(1693–1740) and Elizaveta Petrovna (1709–61), who treated astronomy as a wor-

thy scholarly pursuit.38
The status of the telescope was contested, with British sources promoting it
as a gift, whereas many Russian documents called it a purchase. For example,
on May 9, 1795, in his letter to Charles Whitworth, Lord Grenville described
this transaction as being “for the purpose of being presented by you in His
Majesty’s name to the Empress with suitable compliments on his Majesty’s
part.”39 Russian officials were aware that this was meant as a gift. For example,
Vice-Chancellor Ivan Osterman received two letters about this.40 However,
upon receiving it, the empress and other officials treated the telescope as a
purchase. The court secretary’s report on July 29 stated that “for the Herschel
telescope purchased in London, together with tax and delivery 763 roubles was
paid.”41 The Imperial Academy of Sciences Report indicated that on July 17,
1796 “the empress observed the moon in Tsarskoe Selo with the help of the
telescope purchased for the Academy.”42
The history of the gift’s conception explains the reasons behind Catherine’s
actions. The present originated as an order from the empress to Ambassador
Vorontsov to purchase “a telescope of no less than seven feet long made by
38 “Her Majesty [Anna Ioannovna] observed Saturn with its rings through the seven-foot-
long ‘Newton’s pipe’,” Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosty (March 3, 1735). On July 14, 1748,
Empress Elizaveta watched a solar eclipse in Oranienbaum. See Letopis’ Kunstkamery,
1714–1836, ed. Margarita Hartanovich (St Petersburg: MAE RAN Publishing House, 2014),
212. For general background on Empress Anna Ioannovna’s and Empress Elizaveta’s
patronage of sciences, see Simon Werrett, “An Odd Sort of Exhibition: The St. Petersburg
Academy of Sciences in Enlightened Russia” (Ph.D dissertation, University of Cambridge,
2000).
39 Lord Grenville to Charles Whitworth, May 9, 1795, TNA, FO 65/29. Herschel noted in his
letter that Lord Grenville was to pay for this telescope, signifying that it was meant to be a
gift: “I inclose the account of the instrument, as I understood from his Majesty that Lord
Grenville was to settle for it.” (Frederick Herschel, dispatch to Lord Grenville, May 10, 1795,
TNA, FO 65/29.)
40 Charles Whitworth to Ivan Osterman, “Pis’ma posla Vitvorta vitse-konsulu I. A. Ostermanu
[…] o prisylke teleskopa Ekaterina II v podarok,” Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi
Imperii [Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire] (hereafter “AVPRI”), f. 35
(Snosheniia Rossii s Angliei), op. 35/6, d. 643, l. 60. Also, Russian officials had access to
intercepted and translated dispatches like the one sent by Lord Grenville to Charles
Whitworth, January 17, 1794, “On the British King’s plan to Send Catherine II a telescope
as a gift” (AVPRI, f. 35, op. 5, d. 104, l. 11).
41 Alfavitnyi ukazatel’ k Kamer-fur’erskomu zhurnalu 1795 goda (St Petersburg: Obshchii
Arkhiv Ministerstva Imperatorskogo Dvora, 1894), 203.
42 “Imperatritsa Ekaterina II v Tsarskom sele nabliudala Lunu s pomoshch’iu priobreten-
nogo dlia Akademii teleskopa V. Gershelia,” in Protokoly zasedanii, 4: 515.
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Herschel.”43 But Whitworth and his colleagues decided to turn a desire to

purchase into a diplomatic gift, in an attempt to manipulate her. A purchase
presumes a relatively equal relationship, whereas a gift makes one of the
parties indebted to the other, even if a counter-gift of equal value is given in
return. At a time when Britain needed Russian cooperation in military and
trade affairs, especially in relation to resources, this gift became a means by
which the ambassador wished to tip the balance of power in Britain’s favour.44
Whitworth’s dispatches to Lord Grenville are full of strategies, such as a plan
for obtaining Russian Naval backing by proposing British support on land
which was expected to be rejected by the Russians. “In which case we [may]
find them ready to accede to whatsoever may be required of them for the Good
of the Common Cause,” wrote Whitworth.45 To avoid being indebted to the
British king, the empress attempted to turn the receipt of the telescope in her
favour. When the gift was delivered to the palace, she ordered that money be
paid for it.
Gifts of scientific instruments were used for promoting British superior-
ity and were widely perceived as such. When scientific instruments, includ-
ing telescopes, were delivered to the Qianlong Emperor, he made a point of
demonstrating his negative impression: “Now that the tribute Envoy has seen
that there are also people in the Celestial Empire who are versed in astronomy,
geography and clock-repairing […] he can no longer boast that he alone has got
the secret. Presumably he has begun to stop boasting.”46 Russians also knew
of this connotation, for they also used the display and gifts of scientific instru-
ments to highlight their superior knowledge and enlightened status when
visiting distant lands. They frequently gave British-made instruments as diplo-
matic presents or promoted their use of them to achieve this effect.47
George III’s telescope functioned at the Russian court in exactly the same
way. In September 1796 the empress wished to use this equipment for impress-
ing King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden in order to secure an alliance.48 This was
supposed to be secured via the marriage between Grand Duchess Alexandra
43 Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova, ed. Petr Bartenev, 40 vols (Moscow: Tip. Lebedeva, 1879), 13:
283.
44 AVPRI, f. 35 (Snosheniia Rossii s Angliei), op. 6, d. 105, ll. 1–5 (“Kopii protokolov konferen-
tsii vitse-kantslera I. A. Ostermana s angliiskim poslom Vitvortom”).
45 Charles Whitworth to Lord Grenville, March 19, 1795, TNA, FO 65/29.
46 Cranmer-Byng, “Lord Macartney’s Embassy,” 117–80, 151–52.
47 Simon Werrett, “Technology on Display: Instruments and Identities on Russian Voyages
of Exploration,” The Russian Review 70, no. 3 (July 2011): 380–96 (389), https://doi.
org/10.1111/j.1467-9434.2011.00620.x.
48 Isabel de Madariaga, Rossiia v epokhu Ekateriny Velikoi (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe
obozrenie, 2002), 915. Correspondence relating to the proposed marriage was published
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110 Ekaterina Heath
Pavlovna and the Swedish king, but negotiations were not going smoothly
because of the issue of the grand duchess’s faith. The king kept insisting
that Alexandra had to become a Lutheran, which went against the Russian
court’s traditions.49 Having reached an impasse, the empress hoped to swing
the king’s opinion in Russia’s favour by demonstrating her court’s superiority
over the Swedish.50 “The moon is beautiful today. I should watch it with the
Herschel telescope. I promised the Swedish king to show it to him when he
returns.”51 With this phrase, addressed to her lady-in-waiting, Varvara Golovina,
Catherine avoided mentioning that this was a British gift, instead referring to
the object simply as “the Herschel telescope.” This choice of words allowed her
to lay a claim to Russia’s technical superiority without mentioning her indebt-
edness to the British king. The experience of viewing the beauty of the moon
was supposed to create pleasant memories for both monarchs and prompt the
king to reconsider his position. However, he never returned, and the marriage
arrangements were cancelled.52 Catherine’s words demonstrate the pragmatic
way that the diplomatic gifts were repurposed at the Russian court.
Yet telescopes were not always viewed in this practical way. New trends in
Russia added a layer of complexity to the reception of the Herschel telescope.
It arrived in Russia during a period of transformation in intellectual life. If, in
the beginning of Catherine’s reign, Russian society shared the Enlightenment
view that vision was a superior means for understanding the world, towards
the end of it, its writers started to question the validity of using their eyes for
obtaining accurate knowledge.53 Men of letters like Alexander Radishev and
Vasily Kapnist described Catherinian Russia as a mirage—a visual trick that
aimed to deflect attention away from unsightly practices like serfdom, cor-
ruption, and censorship.54 In this context, a telescope served as a symbol of
the scientific optimism of the past, a valid but largely flawed way of acquir-
ing knowledge. Catherine sensed this shift in perception towards doubting the
sense of vision and turned it into an opportunity to showcase her sophisticated
understanding of the world.
in Sbornik Imperatorskogo Rossiiskogo Istoricheskogo Obshchestva 10 (St Petersburg:

Pechatnia V. I. Golovina, 1872), 195–399.
49 Ibid., 301, 304.
50 Albina Danilova, Piat’ printsess. Docheri imperatora Pavla I (Moscow: Eksmo, 2001), 47.
51 Varvara Golovina, “Zapisky grafiny Varvary Golovinoi,” Istoricheskii vestnik 76 (1899):
33–49 (47).
52 Madariaga, Rossiia v epokhu Ekateriny, 917.
53 Marcus Levitt, The Visual Dominant in Eighteenth-century Russia (DeKalb, IL: Northern
Illinois University Press, 2011), 3.
54 Levitt, The Visual Dominant, 222–52.
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According to Golovina, on one occasion the empress summoned a German

Professor of Astronomy together with the Russian engineer Ivan Kulibin to
Tsarskoe Selo.55 While observing the moon, the empress asked the professor
whether he had made any new discoveries with the help of the Herschel tele-
scope. He responded that “beyond doubt, the moon is inhabited.”56 When the
empress asked her engineer the same question, he replied that he was “not as
knowledgeable as the professor,” but that he had seen nothing. According to
Golovina, the empress liked to recall this episode to illustrate the point that
the same seemingly objective visual evidence could be interpreted differently,
casting doubt on the optical optimism of the Enlightenment. The underlying
message was that vision could lead people away from true knowledge, reveal-
ing the empress’s profound disappointment with Enlightenment ideals after
the tragedies of the French Revolution. Continued recounting of this episode
and a seeming preference for the response from the Old Believer Kulibin
brought Catherine closer to the traditional understanding of the sense of sight
as being aimed at uncovering hidden truths, instead of focusing on superficial
external appearances.57
Mastery over the Earthly Realm
The widespread interest in botany in Europe turned plants into a popular

type of diplomatic gift. Floral gifts were sent from the Netherlands to the
Ottoman Empire in 1613 and from the French King Louis XVI to the Sultan
Tipu of Mysore in 1788.58 Plants were expected to “delight the fancie of many
55 Entry from July 14, 1796, Protokoly zasedanii, 4: 515. In fact, this “German professor” was
a Russian: Professor Stepan Iakovlevich Rumovskii, director of the Russian Academy of
Sciences Observatory. On Ivan Kulibin, see Simon Werrett, “Enlightenment in Russian
Hands: The Inventions and Identity of Ivan Petrovich Kulibin in Eighteenth-Century
St Petersburg,” in History of Technology: Volume Twenty-nine, ed. Ian Inkster (London:
Bloomsbury Academic, 2009), 161–80.
56 “Zapisky grafiny Varvary Golovinoi,” 47.
57 Marcus Levitt, The Visual Dominant, 3.
58 Florike Egmond, “Precious Nature: Rare Naturalia as Collector’s Items and Gifts in
Early Modern Europe,” in Luxury in the Low Countries: Miscellaneous Reflections on
Netherlandish Material Culture, 1500 to the Present, ed. Rengenier Rittersma (Brussels:
Pharo Publishing, 2010), 47; Claudia Swan, “Birds of paradise for the sultan. Early
seventeenth-century Ottoman-Dutch encounters and the uses of wonder,” De Zeventiende
Eeuw. Cultuur in de Nederlanden in interdisciplinair perspectief 29, no. 1 (2013): 49–63; and
Sarah Easterby-Smith, “On Diplomacy and Botanical Gifts. France, Mysore and Mauritius
in 1788,” in The Botany of Empire in the Long Eighteenth Century, ed. Yota Batsaki, Sarah
Burke Cahalan, and Anatole Tchikine (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2016), 191.
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112 Ekaterina Heath
for the strangeness” and, if they survived the voyage and flourished, they “con-
tinued the delight long time.”59 Botanical gifts allowed their owners to travel
to distant lands in the mind’s eye, serving as perfect symbols of the growth
and development of relationships between countries. This practice reached
unprecedented heights in Britain towards the end of the eighteenth century
due to the influence of the botanist and explorer Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820).
The 1795 gift for Maria Feodorovna (fig. 5.7) initiated the British Government’s
policy of sending exotic plants as a means of creating long-term political
ties.60 This tradition continued well into the first quarter of the nineteenth
century.61 The plants sent to the grand duchess signified more than the wish
for the flourishing of diplomatic relationships between the two countries. On
one level, they constituted a statement promoting British imperial interests.
At the same time, the content of this gift indicated Britain’s desire to assure its
independence from Russian natural resources necessary for the maintenance
of its navy.
The gift of plants contained more than two hundred species, almost all of
which were extremely rare and precious.62 Such gifts to Russia were unprec-
edented because of the challenges of transporting live plants across vast dis-
tances with challenging weather. This is why, in the past, British diplomats had
tended to send more durable presents like jewellery and porcelain to avoid the
risks of delivering dead or sickly plants.63 This time, the expertise of Banks,
59 “Notes in writing, besides more privie by mouth, that were given by M. Richard Hakluyt
of Eiton in the Countie of Hereford, esquire, anno 1580 to M. Arthur Pet, and to
M. Charles Jackman, sent by the Merchants of the Moscovie companie for the discovery
of the Northeast straight …,” in The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discover-
ies of the English nation made by sea or over-land, to the remote and farthest distant quar-
ters of the earth, at any time within the compasse of these 1600, ed. Richard Hakluyt, 3 vols
(London: George Bishop, Ralph Newberie, and Robert Barker, 1598–1600), 1: 439.
60 Sir Joseph Banks sent plants to Weimar, Austria, Württemberg, Bavaria, and other coun-
tries on behalf of the British Government. Archives of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew,
London. Goods Outward volumes (1805–36).
61 Ibid.
62 “only 3 of all those he brought had before been seen in Russia.” Joseph Banks to James
Burges, December 29, 1795, in Harold Carter, “Sir Joseph Banks and the Plant Collection
from Kew Sent to Empress Catherine II of Russia 1795,” Bulletin of the British Museum
(Natural History) Historical Series 4, no. 5 (1974): 359.
63 These gifts are now held at the Moscow Kremlin Armoury Museum and the State
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. See Tamara Rappe, Dary vostoka i zapada
Imperatorskomu dvoru za 300 let (St Petersburg: State Hermitage Museum, 2014), exhibi-
tion catalogue, and Britannia & Muscovy: English Silver at the Court of the Tsars, ed. Olga
Dmitrieva and Natalya Abramova (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press,
2006), exhibition catalogue. On the types of gifts generally given by English ambassadors,
see Maija Jansson, “Measured Reciprocity.”
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Figure 5.7 Johann Baptist von Lampi the Elder, Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna, 1795, oil on
canvas, 258 × 200 cm, Pavlovsk Palace Museum.
IMAGE COURTESY OF MARK TEDESCHI
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114 Ekaterina Heath
who had gained world renown after his circumnavigation of the world with
Captain James Cook in 1768–71 and his successful transportation of plants from
different parts of the globe to the gardens at Kew, ensured the success of the
project. The unusually large number of plants in this shipment, compounded
with the great care dedicated to them in order to preserve them during the
long and perilous transit indicated that there must have been great expecta-
tions of reward for the British Empire to take on the risks of such deliveries.
It is particularly interesting that Maria Feodorovna was chosen to be the
recipient of this gift, as during this period her influence on Catherine and the
court was minimal.64 Her perceived lack of importance has caused some his-
torians to assume that such an outstanding gift was meant for Catherine.65
References to the grand duchess as a recipient have been previously disregard-
ed.66 Nevertheless, the correspondence from Lord Grenville to King George III
and Banks to James Burges about the gift discusses the grand duchess and not
the empress as the recipient. Furthermore, Banks’s report states that plants
were delivered to the “houses in Paulofski” [Pavlovsk], Maria Feodorovna’s
estate (fig. 5.8).67 As an astute observer of the Russian court, Ambassador
Whitworth would have been well aware of Catherine’s hostility towards her
son’s family. She rarely visited Pavlovsk, and other members of her court were
prohibited from going there.68 Therefore, one of the purposes of the gift was
64 Catherine’s botanical interests in the 1780s were well known in Europe. For example, in
1784 she was one of twelve recipients to whom John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, sent a copy
of his Botanical Tables containing different Familys of British Plants distinguish’d by a few
obvious parts of Fructification rang’d in a synoptical method (London, 1785). See “Earl of
Bute’s Botanical Tables,” Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information (Royal Botanic Gardens,
Kew) 72 (1892), 307. Catherine was also an intended recipient of a botanical gift from
Denmark—the Flora Danica porcelain set decorated with botanically correct depictions
of plants native to that country, commissioned by Crown Prince Frederick on behalf of
King Christian VII in 1790. The set was finished after Catherine’s death and was never
sent to Russia. See Helen Howes, “The Most Costly Dinner Service,” Design 72, no. 3 (1971):
14–15.
65 Carter, “Sir Joseph Banks.” See also John Gascoigne, Science in the Service of the Empire:
Joseph Banks, the British State and the Uses of Science in the Age of Revolution (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998), 163. Peter Hayden was the first scholar to connect this
transaction with the name of Maria Feodorovna. See Peter Hayden, “The Empress Maria
Fedorovna as a Gardener,” Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia Newsletter, no. 15
(1987): 16–17 (17).
66 Carter, “Sir Joseph Banks,” 352.
67 Lord Grenville to King George III, November 15, 1793, Joseph Banks to James Burges,
July 4, 1795, and Report of Joseph Banks, December 29, 1795, reproduced in Carter, “Sir
Joseph Banks,” 329, 348, 356–57.
68 On Catherine’s rare visits to Pavlovsk, see Kamer-fur’erskii tseremonial’nyi zhurnal 1791 goda
(St Petersburg: Obsh. Arkh. Min. Imp. Dvora, 1890), 571–72, Kamer-fur’erskii tseremonial’nyi
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long term. Maria Feodorovna and Paul Petrovich’s passion for botany was well
known; both had large hothouses for exotic plants on their estates.69 In light of
Catherine’s advancing age, the diplomat had started to look for ways of making
sure that her successors perceived British interests as important. At the same
time, this gift was a perfect opportunity for British officials to weave into the
present a message for Catherine. They knew that the empress would learn all
the minute details about this spectacular gift and understand that some of its
messages were aimed at her. The meaning of this communication would have
been considered offensive or threatening if presented to the empress directly.
By sending it via Maria Feodorovna, British officials were able to avoid humil-
iating the empress and ensure that in the case of confrontation, they could
always refer to this as a misunderstanding.
Banks decided to send plants in pots rather than in seed form to ensure
that the gift would have an overwhelming visual impact. This effect was cre-
ated by both the sight of the plants in full bloom and the fact that they had
arrived unscathed after their perilous journey. Presenting the gift in this way
celebrated the achievements of British gardening as well as its merchant navy.
Moreover, its value was enhanced even further by the fact that it highlighted
the labour involved in creating and delivering the gift.70
On May 6, Banks wrote that he had received “the King’s commands to
select as compleat a collection of exotic plants as can be possibly spard.”71 The
king also requested that the plants sent to Maria Feodorovna had to be “in
the early state of cultivation.”72 This choice signified a desire to celebrate the
achievements of British horticulturists and their knowledge-based pragmatic
zhurnal 1795 goda (St Petersburg: Obsh. Arkh. Min. Imp. Dvora, 1894), 439–40, 529–30,
and Kamer-fur’erskii tseremonial’nyi zhurnal 1796 goda (St Petersburg: Obsh. Arkh. Min.
Imp. Dvora, 1896), 434–35. On Princess Dashkova’s avoidance of visits to the grand ducal
estates in order not to offend Catherine, see Ekaterina Dashkova, Zapiski. Pis’ma sester M.
i K. Vil’mont iz Rossii (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta,
1987), 158.
69 Paul Petrovich created a botanical garden in Gatchina in 1793. See Vladimir Makarov and
Anatolii N. Petrov, Gatchina (St Petersburg: Izd. Sergeia Khodova, 2005), 23, 201–02. Maria
Feodorovna had a wide range of hothouses at Pavlovsk. Ol’ga Lameko, Gosudarstvennyi
muzei-zapovednik Pavlovsk. Polnyi katalog kollektsii. Tom XV. Grafika. Vypusk 1.
Arkhitekturnaia grafika kontsa XVIII–nachala XIX veka (St Petersburg: Pavlovsk, 2011),
150–54.
70 Marcel Mauss, The Gift. The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies (London
and New York: Routledge, 2002), 3.
71 Joseph Banks to James Burges, May 6, 1795, Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library
of Australia, Canberra, Mfm G 1901, Letters of Sir Joseph Banks, 1767–98.
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116 Ekaterina Heath
Figure 5.8 Sergei Shchedrin, View of Pavlovsk, early nineteenth century, watercolour,
Pavlovsk Palace Museum, Pavlovsk.
IMAGE COURTESY OF MARK TEDESCHI
approach. The plants came from all parts of the British Empire, with the major-
ity arriving from two territories of crucial importance to Britain’s imperial
expansion and accumulation of natural resources: the Cape of Good Hope and
Australia. The Cape was needed for securing the route into the Indian Ocean
for British navy and merchant vessels as well as for supplying British India with
troops.73 Australia was meant to become a key source of naval supplies for the
South Pacific.74 The gift of plants thus promoted Britain’s ability to build and
sustain sophisticated networks for transferring goods and people, particularly
in the Southern Hemisphere, where its interests did not clash with those of
Russia.75
73 John McAleer, “‘The Key to India’: Troop Movements, Southern Africa, and Britain’s Indian
Ocean World, 1795–1820,” The International History Review 35, no. 2 (April 1, 2013): 294–316,
https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2012.761147.
74 Alan Frost, “The Choice of Botany Bay: The Scheme to Supply the East Indies with Naval
Stores,” Australian Economic History Review 15, no. 1 (January 1975): 1–20.
75 Natasha Glaisyer, “Networking: Trade and exchange in the eighteenth-century British
Empire,” The Historical Journal 47 (2004): 451–76.
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Several plants within this shipment were singled out to be the carriers
of specific messages.76 Maria Feodorovna would have been told about their
special status by the gardener George Noe, who accompanied the gift.77 The
first on the list was Strelitzia reginae (fig. 5.9) which was named in honour of
Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744–1818), Queen Consort of George III
and a passionate botanist and patron of Kew. This rare plant connected Maria
Feodorovna with a fellow German princess who shared her passion for bot-
any. There can be no doubt that Maria Feodorovna would have felt flattered
after receiving such a plant. This positive experience may have influenced her
pro-British views, which she kept promoting for the rest of her life, even when
Russia was allied with Napoleonic France.78
The two other plants, New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax) and Brucea anti-
dysenterica, were included in the gift as a message for Catherine. Banks had
first encountered Phormium tenax during Captain Cook’s circumnavigation
of 1768–71.79 It had strong fibres which were believed to be superior to other
types of flax.80 Banks believed that by introducing this plant into Britain he
would improve its economy, as the country would no longer need to depend
on Russian flax.81 On the surface, sending such a significant plant to Russia
was a gesture of friendship and desire to share knowledge. In his letters to dip-
lomats Banks expressed hope that this flax would become “an article of com-
merce” in Russia.82 This was a surprising assertion because Russia was already
76 Joseph Banks to James Burges, July 4, 1795, The British Museum, London, Dawson Turner
copies of the Banks correspondence, 9.221–26 (hereafter “Dawson Turner copies”).
78 See the letters of Grand Duchess Elizaveta to her husband Alexander I in Elizaveta i
Aleksandr. Khronika po pismam imperatritsy Elizavety Alexeevny 1792–1826, ed. Damir
Solov’ev (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2013), 133.
79 “New Zealand Flax. Phormium tenax,” Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Bulletin of Miscellaneous
Information 4 (1919): 169–77 (169).
80 Britain tried to end its dependency on Russian flax and hemp several times by trying to
forge an alliance with German states and Poland in 1791, but these attempts came to noth-
ing. See Horn, Great Britain, 223.
81 The British Navy around the turn of the nineteenth century was severely hampered by
the undersupply of masts, cordage, and canvas. See Alan Frost, “Botany Bay: An Imperial
Venture of the 1780s,” The English Historical Review 100 (1985): 309–27. The search for an
alternative source of naval supplies continued into the nineteenth century, when Robert
Jenkinson, Lord Liverpool, wrote to Lord Sylvester Glenbervie: “I am far from thinking
that we should relax in our endeavour to obtain this most important article of naval stores
from some other country besides Russia.” TNA, Board of Trade hemp papers, BT 6/100.
82 Carter, “Joseph Banks,” 345.
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118 Ekaterina Heath
a dominant exporter of flax to Western Europe.83 Banks knew this, as it was

exactly the reason why he had initiated attempts to grow this plant in British
colonies. If the British could successfully grow flax in the Southern Hemisphere,
this would potentially damage Russian exports of flax, a major source of its
income. Therefore, this was a statement that the British Government planned
to end its dependence on the key Russian resource.84
At the same time, private correspondence between Whitworth and the
British authorities suggests that sending New Zealand flax to Russia had
another motive: the need for cooperation between Russia and Britain in
managing flax and hemp as crucial war-time resources.85 Whitworth’s dis-
patches mix discussion of the gifts with that of the urgent need to secretly
purchase hemp in Riga and St Petersburg on behalf of the British Navy.86 This
was to ensure that the French would have insufficient supplies and to secure
any surplus for the British Admiralty.87 When the ambassador learned that
the French were using Danish merchants to purchase supplies in Russia, he
“mentioned the matter to this Ministry [the Russian ministry] but as may be
expected, without effect.”88 Ultimately, the Russian ministry refused to cooper-
ate in the economic blockade of France, threatening the success of the military
campaign.
In this challenging environment, Whitworth had to mitigate the threat
to the British supply of hemp and flax with the use of secret agents. Having
learned that by February 1795 the French had already purchased one thou-
sand five hundred tons of hemp in Riga, he convinced an agent to come to
St Petersburg.89 “At St Petersburg large quantities are still to be had which
if not purchased on English Account will most undoubtedly be taken up by
the French.”90 His task now was to procure from the Russian Government “as
much protection and countenance” as he could.91 The need to liaise with the
83 John Sullivan, Russian Cloth Seals in Britain: A Guide to Identification, Usage and
Anglo-Russian Trade in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Oxford: Oxbow Books,
2012), 2.
84 Horn, Great Britain, 225, and Alan Frost, Convicts and Empire: A Naval Question, 1776–1811
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 325.
85 Lord Grenville to Charles Whitworth, February 24, 1795, and Charles Whitworth to Lord
Grenville, March 19, 1795, TNA, FO 65/29.
86 Ibid.
87 Charles Whitworth to Lord Grenville, March 19, 1795 and March 27, 1795, TNA, FO 65/29.
88 Charles Whitworth to Lord Grenville, February 24, 1795, TNA, FO 65/29.
89 Charles Whitworth to Lord Grenville, January 6, 1795, TNA, FO 65/29.
91 Lord Grenville to Charles Whitworth, February 24, 1795, TNA, FO 65/29.
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Figure 5.9 James Sowerby, Strelitzia Reginae, 1787, watercolour, 30.5 × 44.1 cm, The Natural
History Museum, London.
© THE TRUSTEES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM / LICENSED
UNDER THE OPEN GOVERNMENT LICENCE
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120 Ekaterina Heath
Russian authorities became even more pertinent because the Russians had
learned about this secret agent’s existence and identity through Ambassador
Vorontsov.92 Any further spread of this knowledge would have led to inflation
of local hemp prices and failure to secure these materials for the British. In
this environment, the botanical and astronomical gifts to Maria Feodorovna
and Catherine I aimed to create a favourable atmosphere both for signing the
imminent trade treaty and for ensuring that the governments of both coun-
tries shared resources like hemp in the war against France.
To highlight the special value of New Zealand flax, the grand duchess and her
husband were presented with it in the palace instead of the garden, where they
accepted the rest of the gift. “She [the grand duchess] had ordered him into
the drawing room to shew the Botany Bay flax.”93 The plant’s importance was
communicated through supplying Maria Feodorovna and Paul Petrovich with
it in its multiple forms; a finished product (“a small bundle of this Flax manu-
factured by the Indians is sent”), a live plant, and a drawing of it (fig. 5.10).94
The complete gift demonstrated Banks’s plan to ensure that the plant’s practi-
cal purpose as well as its potential implications for the Russian economy were
understood correctly by the court.
The image of phormium tenax sent to Maria Feodorovna reinforced the idea
that by transplanting it to other lands Britain was planning to become less
dependent on Russian flax. It is most likely that the drawing sent to the grand
duchess was a copy of Sydney Parkinson’s sketch made during the Cook cir-
cumnavigation. Banks had commissioned it, paying another artist, Frederick
Nodder, to complete it in watercolour in 1789. This image was to become an
important part of Banks’s Florilegium which he was planning to publish at
the time.95 Banks liked sending images of plants he commissioned to royal
families and fellow botanists to foster mutually beneficial connections.96 This
watercolour depicts a plant freed from the cultural and historical context of
New Zealand, where it was first discovered. The white background reinforces
the idea of easy movement of plant resources from one continent to another

93 MS notes by Sir Joseph Banks, December 29, 1795, Sutro Library, University of San
Francisco, California, Banks MS. Ru I: 5.
94 Joseph Banks to James Burges, July 4, 1795, Dawson Turner copies.
95 Mel Gooding, “The Florilegium 1772–1990,” in Joseph Banks’ Florilegium. Botanical
Treasures from Cook’s First Voyage, ed. Mel Gooding and David Mabberley (London:
Thames and Hudson), 300–02.
96 David Mabberley, “A Note on Some Adulatory Botanical Plates Distributed by Sir Joseph
Banks,” Kew Bulletin 66, no. 3 (2011): 475–77.
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Figure 5.10 Frederick Nodder, after Sydney Parkinson, Phormium tenax, 1789 (1769),
watercolour on paper, The Natural History Museum, London.
© THE TRUSTEES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM / ALAMY STOCK
PHOTO
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122 Ekaterina Heath
for the benefit of the empire. Its focus on the flower instead of its overall view
reflects its purpose. The drawing was aimed at Linnaean botanists, for whom
the plant’s sexual organs were key for plant identification. The watercolour
simultaneously promoted British voyages of discovery and the country’s suc-
cessful use of botany. This utilitarian approach highlighted the fact that plants
like phormium tenax were resources to be identified and used for the needs of
the empire.
Brucea antidysenterica, the third key plant in this shipment, was valued
for its astringent properties, which were believed to heal dysentery.97 This
disease was the main source of death during military campaigns.98 Brucea
could be very beneficial for Russia, taking into consideration the scale of
its military activities during this period. Combined with the naval connota-
tions of the flax gift, the underlying message of the present was that Britain
desired Russia’s support in its war against Revolutionary France. The com-
bination of plants with positive and negative connotations communicated
the idea that economic and military cooperation with Britain would lead to
a flourishing of trade and science, whereas the absence of it would lead to
economic isolation and a significant loss of income, as in the case of Russian
export of flax.
The complexity of the two diplomatic gifts sent from Britain in 1795 con-
trasts sharply with the strategy employed by the same government officials just
a few years later when they sent horses to Emperor Paul I (fig. 5.11). The veiled
insults and threats implicit in the gifts from 1795 allowed British officials to
apply pressure to their Russian counterparts without the danger of the recipi-
ents losing face. Evidence suggests that, despite the potential for conflict, the
demonstration of aggression, compounded with other political factors, was
successful in convincing Catherine to sign a trade agreement confirming the
privileged status of British merchants in Russia. It also may have influenced
her decision to send the Russian navy and sixty thousand soldiers to fight in
the war against Revolutionary France.99 For the British, the risks of offending
the other side had paid off in spades.
97 Richard Pankhurst, “The Medical Activities in Eighteenth Century Ethiopia of James

Bruce the Explorer,” Medizinhistorisches Journal 17, no. 3 (1982): 256–76 (274).
98 Quentin Outram, “The Socio-Economic Relations of Warfare and the Military Mortality
Crises of the Thirty Years’ War,” Medical History 45, no. 2 (2001): 151–84.
99 Roderick McGrew, Paul I of Russia, 1754–1801 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 282.
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Figure 5.11
James Walker, after John Augustus
Atkinson, Paul the First (Emperor of
Russia), published June 1, 1797, mezzotint,
703 × 498 mm, Royal Collection Trust.
Mastery over the State
The risky strategy behind the gifts to Catherine and Maria Feodorovna con-
trasted sharply with the encouragement that was communicated by the British
authorities just two years later with a diplomatic gift of horses to Paul I. This
was unusual given that the political and economic entanglements between
Russia and Britain had remained the same.100 This change of tactics can be
explained by Paul’s unpredictable behaviour and his proclivity to take offence
easily. Soon after his ascension, Whitworth remarked nervously: “The ease and
tranquillity of the Late reign are lost […] A spirit of reform has spread a univer-
sal alarm.”101 The ambassador’s use of terms like “alarm” go a long way towards
explaining the new strategy towards persuading the tsar to join the war effort
against Revolutionary France. British officials had much less respect for Paul’s
capability to decipher complex diplomatic messages and act in a calculated
and rational manner. In this context, a low-risk strategy of sending a non-
controversial gift would have seemed a safer option.
100 McGrew, Paul I, 207.

101 Charles Whitworth to Lord Grenville, December 5, 1796, TNA, FO 65/35.
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124 Ekaterina Heath
In April 1797, soon after Catherine’s death and Paul’s coronation, Whitworth
suggested to Lord Grenville that Britain should send six horses to the new
emperor.102 These were purchased on August 2, 1797.103 Documents reveal that
all the horses were of different colour, but their age was roughly the same: five
and six years.104 Horses of this age are known to be reliable and sturdy, their
hidden potential already fully revealed. This choice signifies a desire to give the
horses as a means of transportation rather than for racing, breeding, or other
purposes.
This interpretation is further supported by the equestrian portrait of Paul I
by James Walker, published in London on June 1, 1797, two months before the
horses were purchased (fig. 5.11). In this print the emperor is depicted on a
white stallion, Fripon.105 This was the emperor’s preferred colour of horse, as
multiple extant portraits attest. A white horse of Hannover was also a symbol
of the British Royal family, having been adopted into the heraldry in 1714.106
This context reveals that sending the Russian emperor horses of all colours
except white, was significant.107A white horse could have been interpreted by
the Russian tsar either as a sign of submission or as an undue attempt to influ-
ence the country’s governance. Instead, less glamorous brown and grey horses
acted as symbolic service animals, prepared to take the emperor to the war
with France.
102 “I have the satisfaction of informing you that in consequence of intimation contained in
your dispatch number 17, His Majesty has been pleased to direct that six horses should
be purchased, as soon as they are procured, of the kind of which you have described, and
they will be shipped to Petersburg … by one of the earliest spring vessels, for the purpose
of being presented in the King’s name to His Imperial Majesty.” Lord Grenville to Charles
Whitworth, April 11, 1797, TNA, FO 65/38.
103 W. Parker to Mr Hammond, August 9, 1797, TNA, FO 65/38.
104 List of horses purchased for the Emperor of Russia, August 2, 1797, TNA, FO 65/38.
105 Ol’ga Lameko, “Iz moei kollektsii v Pavlovske,” Angliiskaia graviura XVIII–nachala XIX
veka iz sobraniia imperatritsy Marii Fedorovny (St Petersburg: Pavlovsk, 2017), 167.
106 The Hanoverian Dimension in British History, 1714–1837, ed. Brendan Simms and Torsten
Riotte (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 90.
107 “List of six horses purchased for the Emperor of Russia, August 2: A Bay Horse – 6 years,
A Light Grey – 6 years, A Chestnut Crop – 6, A Chestnut – 6, A Dark Grey – 5, A Dark
Grey Stone Horse – 5.” List of horses purchased for the Emperor of Russia, August 2, 1797,
FO 65/38, TNA.
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A horse was a positive symbol. They were used for promoting, both liter-
ally and figuratively, the political agendas of those in positions of power.108
Since antiquity the image of the mounted monarch has become an emblem
for the appropriate relationship between a ruler (a rider) and his people (a
horse).109 This turned horses into some of the most popular diplomatic gifts
during the early modern period, alluding to their new owners’ masculinity
and strong leadership qualities.110 For all these reasons, Russian tsars regularly
received horses from European and Asian envoys.111 Indeed, horses were a gift
that would not offend the tsar because they did not indicate any deficiency on
the part of the Russian Empire. The Russian nobleman, Count Aleksei Orlov,
had already been producing some of the fastest and strongest horses in Europe
for over a decade. This new breed, called Bars, would soon become the one of
the most popular horse breeds of the period.112
The number of horses sent suggests a meaning that went beyond the tradi-
tional interpretations of such diplomatic gifts. Six was equal to the number of
animals that an early modern Grand Master of a knightly order would take to
war.113 This would include packhorses for equipment, riding horses for travel-
ling, and a warhorse for the battlefield. Paul would have known the signifi-
cance of this number because he saw himself as a knight: he became a “Grand
Master of the Knights Hospitaller” just a year after the gift.114
In the context of the political environment of that year, the horses signified
an invitation to re-join Britain in the war against France. When Paul came to
power, he had immediately recalled the men sent to the Rhine by Catherine,
believing that Russia should concentrate on domestic reform instead of wars
of expansion.115 The campaign in France in 1797 had been bankrolled by the
108 Karen Raber, “Introduction,” in The Culture of the Horse. Status, Discipline, and Identity in
the Early Modern World, ed. Karen Raber and Treva Tucker (New York: Palgrave, 2005), 2.
109 Ibid., 20–21.
110 Ibid.
111 Anu Mänd, “Horses, stags and beavers: Animals as presents in late-medieval Livonia,”
Acta Historica Tallinnensia 33, no. 1 (January 2016): 3–17 (3).
112 Ann Kleimola, “Cultural Convergence: The Equine Connection Between Muscovy and
Europe,” in Raber, The Culture of the Horse, 55.
113 In the sixteenth century, a noble heavy cavalryman would often take five horses on a mili-
tary campaign. Raber, The Culture of the Horse, 9.
114 McGrew, Paul I, 276–78.
115 Ibid., 207–08.
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126 Ekaterina Heath
British Crown. Whitworth and his superiors in London thus tried to convince
the tsar to change his mind. While the horses were in transit to Russia, the
ambassador wrote to Lord Grenville that he was “fully persuaded on the con-
trary that the Emperor considers [an alliance] with England as natural, and as
essentially combined with the welfare of His Empire.”116 This suggests that the
British planned to use horses to bring Paul back into the fold of the military
and trade alliance.
The three gifts delivered to Russia at the end of the eighteenth century
demonstrate a shift in British diplomacy in choosing to communicate asser-
tive messages of power that alternated with more traditionally benign gifts of
flattery. The message depended on the recipient ruler’s personality and the cir-
cumstances of diplomatic exchange with that country. The success of this new
form of diplomacy can be seen by its subsequent adoption by other European
states like Spain and France.117 For example, French diplomats made attempts
at symbolic domination of Tunisia through sending weapons, long before the
conquest of this country became a reality.118 By adding symbolic aggression to
their diplomatic toolkit, the British relied on the polysemic character of gifts
and ambiguities in cross-cultural understanding. Its continued use in British
diplomacy well into the nineteenth century highlights that its successes out-
weighed its potential risks.
In 1735 Johann Zedler wrote that “wisdom is required if one wishes his gifts
to achieve the desired effect”.119 The Enlightenment period and its intellectual
pursuits fed into the process of diplomatic gift giving. The diplomatic presents
sent to Russia in the late 1790s highlight the benefits of a high level of intel-
lectual investment in the gift-giving process. The influence and multi-faceted
objectives of this method enabled the diplomats to expand their capability
and enhance their standing at court.
116 Charles Whitworth to Lord Grenville, Moscow, May 8, 1797, TNA, FO 65/38.
117 Christian Windler, “Tributes and presents in Franco-Tunisian diplomacy,” Journal of Early
Modern History 4, no. 2 (2000): 168–199 (191).
118 Ibid., 190.
119 Cordula Bishoff, “Presents for Princesses: Gender in Royal Receiving and Giving,” Studies
in the Decorative Arts 15, no. 1 (2007–09): 19–45 (19).
- 978-3-657-79376-1
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Figure 6.1 Malachite urn, 1836, Peterhof Imperial Lapidary Works, malachite, gilt metal,
marble, 180 × 140 cm, Windsor Castle, England.
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Chapter 6
Courtly Splendour and Cultural Identity:

Nineteenth-century Russian Imperial Gifts for the
British Royal Family
Caroline de Guitaut
During the long reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901, four emperors ruled
Russia. Nicholas I (1796–1855) died of pneumonia, Alexander II (1818–81) was
assassinated, Alexander III (1845–94) died prematurely of kidney disease at the
age of forty-nine, and Nicholas II (1868–1918) was murdered by the Bolsheviks
on the night of July 16, 1918, thus bringing to an end more than three centu-
ries of rule by the Romanov dynasty. Queen Victoria, on the other hand, died
relatively peacefully of a stroke at the age of eighty-one on January 22, 1901 at
Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.
The complex political relationship between Great Britain and Russia and
their respective rulers is well documented.1 Queen Victoria, a constitutional
monarch, who nonetheless was the figurehead of millions of people across the
British Empire, viewed her Russian counterparts—autocratic, absolute rulers
of the vast Russian Empire—with great suspicion. In 1878 the queen described
the country thus: “Russia, our worst enemy in her policy of ambitious aggres-
sion and duplicity.”2 Her Russian counterparts were no less mistrusting of the
British. Emperor Nicholas I, who had allied himself with the conservative rul-
ers of Austria and Prussia, regarded Britain, with its taste for democracy, as
dangerously subversive.
The vast personal correspondence that Queen Victoria produced during her
reign, together with the private observations recorded in her journal, chart the
An earlier version of this essay was presented as a guest lecture for The Frick Collection, New
York, on January 29, 2020, entitled “The Art of Diplomacy: Collecting Russian Art in the Age
of Queen Victoria.”
1 See, for example: J. A. R. Marriott, Anglo-Russian Relations 1689–1943 (London: Methuen &
Co., 1944), K. W. B. Middleton, Britain and Russia. An Historical Essay (London: Hutchinson
& Co., 1947); Gerald Morgan, Anglo-Russian Rivalry in Central Asia, 1810–1895 (Oxford:
Routledge, 1981); Keith Neilson, Britain and the last tsar: British policy and Russia, 1894–1917
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
2 Queen Victoria to the Earl of Carnavon, January 4, 1878, in The Letters of Queen Victoria, ed.
George Earle Buckle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, second edition), 5: 589,
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139923729.020.

136 Caroline de Guitaut
political turmoil between the two nations in the nineteenth century and pro-
vide a fascinating insight into the personal relationships between the British
royal family and the Romanovs. But what also survives in the Royal Collection
and in the former collections of the Russian imperial family is a rich body of
fine and decorative art exchanged as diplomatic or personal gifts between the
sovereigns of each nation. Each work of art embodies an expression of grati-
tude on the part of the donor and most were well received by the recipient.
But were they merely tokens deployed to promote the best of native crafts-
manship, or do they reveal something of the personality and artistic interests
of the donor, and a desire to give something which they know the recipient
will value and most importantly enjoy? As this chapter explores, the gifts can
be considered as cultural envoys and forerunners of the best exponents of
Russian artistic expression and craftsmanship which would enjoy great suc-
cess at the international exhibitions, beginning with the Great Exhibition in
London in 1851.
The first significant Russian work of art sent to Queen Victoria was arguably
one of the most impressive, due to its enormous scale. Standing two metres
high without its stone plinth, this monumental malachite vase was made by the
Imperial Porcelain Manufactory in St Petersburg (fig. 6.1). Produced in 1836, the
vase was sent by Nicholas I as a thank you present to the queen following the
visit of the tsesarevich to England, the future Emperor Alexander II, whom the
queen had received at Windsor Castle. Despite doubts as to the grand duke’s
security, his visit had passed off without incident and the emperor expressed
his pleasure regarding the reception given to his son by Queen Victoria, via the
British Ambassador in St Petersburg, Lord Clanricarde.3 Later that year, during
an audience with the emperor, the ambassador was informed of the emperor’s
intention to present the queen with a malachite vase from the Hermitage col-
lection. The gift was dispatched on the steamer SS Sirius, which sailed from
Kronstadt on August 16, 1839. In Queen Victoria’s journal entry for August 22,
1839, she records: “‘The Emperor is going to send you a present,’ Lord M. [Lord
Melbourne, prime minister] said, ‘haven’t you seen that?’ I said ‘no,’ and he
continued, quite touched, ‘a malachite vase – they say it is the finest in the
world and it stands in his palace at present.’”4
3 Ulick John de Burgh, 1st Marquess of Clanricarde (1802–74), known as Lord Dunkellin until
1808 and The Earl of Clanricarde between 1808 and 1825, was British Ambassador to Russia
between 1838 and 1840.
4 Queen Victoria’s Journal, August 22, 1839 (Princess Beatrice’s copies, 12: 67), RA VIC/
MAIN/QVJ (W), www.queenvictoriasjournals.org (hereafter “Queen Victoria’s Journal”),
accessed July 14, 2021. William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne of Kilmore, Lord Melbourne
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Courtly Splendour and Cultural Identity 137
Nicholas I was instrumental in introducing monumental hardstone vases

to the decoration of the New Hermitage, the purpose-built museum that he
had created at the Winter Palace to house the imperial art collections after
this part of the palace had been destroyed by fire in 1837. A watercolour in
the Hermitage collection by Eduard Hau, depicting the main entrance hall,
shows the elegance of the design by the German architect, Leo von Klenze
(1784–1864), whom Nicholas had employed to create the renovated space. The
massive granite columns are combined with large vases carved from richly
coloured hardstones found in Siberia.5
While decorative items were carved from hardstone across Europe, the scale
and sophistication of vases found in Russia are unique. There were three main
lapidary factories and they worked almost exclusively for the imperial house-
hold. The first hardstone carving manufactory had been established at Peterhof
by Peter the Great in 1721 as part of his efforts to introduce the European dec-
orative arts to Russia, and it was here that this vase was made. The archives
of the Peterhof Imperial Lapidary Works record the costs of producing the
vase, which amounted to the astonishing sum of 40,000 roubles—equivalent
to about 500,000 US dollars today.6 Leading architects designed the vases, as
well as their intricate gilt-bronze mounts. Such works generally echoed the
French Empire style, but the Russians would add an extra richness, and much
of the work they produced in hardstone was of an unsurpassed quality. The
original hardstone pedestal, made of putilov stone, was reduced in scale in
the early twentieth century for reasons which are unknown. Queen Victoria
had the monumental vase placed in the Grand Reception Room at Windsor
Castle, where it remained until the catastrophic fire of autumn 1992. Though
the fire almost completely destroyed the room in which it was displayed, the
vase survived.7
(1779–1848), was British prime minister from July 16 to November 14, 1834 and April 18, 1835 to
August 30, 1841 and a close friend and adviser to the queen during the early years of her reign.
5 Eduard Hau, Interiors of the New Hermitage, The Upper Landing of the Staircase, 1860, water-
colour on paper, 29.8 × 42.7 cm, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, inv. no. ОР–11753,
https://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/digital-collection/02.+
drawings/288982, accessed July 14, 2021. On the rebuilding of the New Hermitage, see: Boris
Piotrovsky, The Hermitage: Its History and Collection (Toronto: Granada, 1982); Amy Digout,
“Artful Diplomacy: Nicholas I’s New Hermitage in the Age of the Public Museum” (Ph.D dis-
sertation, University of Cambridge, 2011); Geraldine Norman, The Hermitage: The Biography
of a Great Museum (New York: Fromm, 1998).
6 Natal’ia N. Mavrodina, Proizvedeniia russkogo kamnereznogo iskusstva za predelami Rossii.
Spravochnik (St Petersburg: Izd. Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha, 2019), 49.
7 The room was restored in 1997.
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Figure 6.2
Carl Timoleon von Neff, The Grand
Duchesses Maria and Olga, daughters
of Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia, before
October 15, 1840, oil on canvas, 153.3 ×
117.4 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
At the time of its production in 1836, this was the largest malachite vase ever
produced, and it was included in the catalogue of the Hermitage collection
compiled on April 16, 1837.8 The emperor decided to display the vase in the
Hermitage and, in the records, it was described as follows: “By order of the
Minister of the Imperial Court, the large porcelain vase bearing portraits of
Emperor Alexander I was moved from the Round Hall in the Hermitage and
in its place was installed a new large vase of malachite.”9 It seems surprising
that Nicholas I would part with such a significant object and there is evidence
to suggest that afterwards he may have regretted his decision, for, in 1841, he
commissioned a second vase of almost identical design and scale to replace
it.10 This later work was designed by the architect Carlo Rossi (1775–1849), who
had been working almost exclusively in the Russian imperial court, creating
some of the most significant buildings around the Hermitage during the reign
of Nicholas I. The replacement vase was positioned in the vacant spot where
8 Mavrodina, Proizvedeniia russkogo kamnereznogo iskusstva, 49.

9 Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv [Russian State Historical Archives, St
Petersburg] (hereafter “RGIA”), f. 515, op. 15, d. 380, ll. 65, 71, cited in Natal’ia Mavrodina,
Iskusstvo russkikh kamnerezov XVIII–XIX vekov (St Petersburg: Izd. Gosudarstvennogo
Ermitazha, 2007), 124.
10 Ibid.
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the vase given to Victoria had once stood, at the top of the council staircase,
where it still stands today.
The marriage of Queen Victoria to her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-
Coburg and Gotha (1819–61), took place on February 10, 1840 at the Chapel
Royal, St James’s Palace. This was the moment for the receipt of many wed-
ding gifts, and that which was sent by the Russian emperor was surprisingly
personal. He commissioned the artist, Carl Timoleon von Neff [Timofei Neff]
(1804–77), to make portraits of his wife, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, and
of his two daughters, Maria and Olga (fig. 6.2). Von Neff had succeeded the
artist Karl Briullov as painter to the imperial family and was a rising star at the
Russian court. The gift of the portraits may have been motivated or encouraged
by the emperor’s consort, Alexandra Feodorovna. Born Princess Charlotte of
Prussia, she was the eldest surviving daughter of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of
Prussia and her marriage to the future Nicholas I on July 1, 1817 was a political
union forging closer ties between the two countries. However, it appears that
the couple were ideally suited, and their relationship was regarded as a love
match.
In 1821, Alexandra Feodorovna, together with her two eldest children,
Alexander and Maria, sat for a portrait by George Dawe (1781–1829).11 Dawe
was one of the most important British artists working in situ at the Russian
imperial court during this period of the nineteenth century, demonstrating
the continuing cultural exchange of artists and craftsmen between the two
countries that had begun under Peter the Great. The tsar’s establishment of
the capital of Russia in St Petersburg in 1703 had attracted numerous British
settlers to the opportunity of working for a new Europeanised royal court.12
Dawe spent ten years in St Petersburg in the service of Nicholas I’s predeces-
sor, Emperor Alexander I, during which time he painted the imperial family,
including a large portrait of the emperor which Prince Albert himself acquired
in 1844 (fig. 11.8). This served as the model for all subsquent large scale portraits
of Alexander I.
Dawe also completed a remarkable 322 portraits of Russian generals and
dignatories who had distinguished themselves in the Napoleonic Wars. These
portraits were inserted into the War Gallery in the Winter Palace (fig. 11.1),
which Alexander I created as a pantheon of the war heroes, and which opened
11 George Dawe, Charlotte, Empress of Russia, with her eldest children Alexander and Maria,
c. 1821, oil on canvas, 276.9 × 185.4 cm, Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 404608.
12 On the British in St Petersburg, see Anthony Cross, St Petersburg and the British: The City
through the Eyes of British Visitors and Residents (London: Frances Lincoln, 2008) and
Anthony Cross, ‘By the Banks of the Neva’. Chapters from the Lives and Careers of the British
in Eighteenth-Century Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
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on December 25, 1826, the anniversary of Napoleon’s expulsion from Russia.

This triumphal military gallery was mirrored in England by King George IV’s
creation of the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle, which was hung with
portraits honouring the defeat of Napoleon by Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–
1830).13 This was completed during the reign of King William IV and is seen in
Joseph Nash’s watercolour of 1844 (fig. 11.2).14
The visit of Nicholas I to Britain in 1844 was a major event, being the first
visit of a Russian emperor for thirty years, since Alexander I’s visit to the Prince
Regent in 1814. The emperor saw it as a watershed in relations between the two
countries. Although there has been some debate as to which side initiated the
meeting, the possibility had been discussed by the two countries’ respective
ministers over recent months and they had laid careful plans to facilitate the
meeting.15 Sir Robert Peel, Prime Minister, wrote to the Russian Ambassador,
Ernst Philipp Graf von Brunnow: “I spoke to the Queen and Prince Albert. They
were greatly pleased at the prospect of a visit from the Emperor. The Queen
and the Prince were really personally gratified at the thought of having the
Emperor under their roof.”16 To mark the occasion, a medal was struck and it
was inscribed: “Nicholas I, Emperor of all Russia, friend and guest of Queen
Victoria of the Britons, 1844.”17
The visit lasted ten days in June and was considered a success. However,
Queen Victoria’s attitude towards the emperor seemed to oscillate between
positive and negative. In her journal entry of June 9, she wrote:
I then gave him for the Empress a bracelet of enamel and diamonds containing
my hair, begging the Emperor to place it at his feet. Albert returned with a sketch
of the Waterloo Gallery at Windsor, which I had had done for the Emperor. I told
him at the same time I would send him, when it was completed, a cup, similar to
the one I had given at Ascot Races, which he had so much admired.18
13 For a fuller discussion of the Military Gallery in the Winter Palace and its English counter-
part, see Allison Leigh’s essay in Chapter 11 of this volume.
14 Joseph Nash, Windsor Castle. The Waterloo Chamber, June 5, 1844, 1844, watercolour and
bodycolour over pencil, 28.2 cm × 36.8 cm, Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 919785.
15 W. Bruce Lincoln, Nicholas I. Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias (Bloomington and
London: Indiana University Press, 1978), 220.
16 Sir Robert Peel to Ernst Philipp Graf von Brunnow, January 14, 1814. Moscow, Arkhiv
vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi imperii [Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire]
(“AVPRI”), f. 133, op. 468 (1814), d. 6840, ll. 370, 18.
17 Medal commemorating the visit of Nicholas I to England, 1844, copper, Leonard Charles
Wyon, Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 443524.
18 Queen Victoria’s Journal, June 9, 1844 (Princess Beatrice’s copies, 17: 203–04).
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But less generously she added:
I think that our simple and unaffected reception of the Emperor in our home
life, as well as the honour and civility shown him, without any ostentation, have
made an impression on his mind. But one has to keep in mind that he has been
brought up with the greatest severity, by an autocratic and unsociable mother,
the father having been a madman and a perfect monster.19
Nicholas I’s patronage suffered from decisions that were sometimes disas-
trous. He sold off over one thousand paintings from the Hermitage collec-
tion, some of which were of prime importance, and he went further by having
others destroyed. In one such instance, he melted down several of Catherine
the Great’s gold and silver dinner services—over three thousand pounds of
metal in all—and had new ones made in a style that he preferred. During the
emperor’s visit to London, he had visited the workshops and showrooms of
leading firms of goldsmiths, such as Mortimer & Hunt (Hunt & Roskell) and
Garrard’s; impressed with their work, he promptly ordered a large table ser-
vice, the so-called “London Service.” This comprised over 1,600 pieces, among
which were seven sculptural centrepieces including The Hunter, produced by
Hunt & Roskell. Modelled by the sculptor Edward Hodges Baily in 1847, The
Hunter is a replica of the Queen’s Cup presented at the Ascot Races.20
Queen Victoria gave and promised several gifts both for Nicholas I and for
Empress Alexandra and, in return, the emperor made a remarkable series of
gifts to the queen, which arrived later in 1844. These included an elaborate
table or guéridon with gilt-bronze mounts, designed and made in the work-
shop of the Finnish-born silversmith and bronze-worker Carl Johann Tegelsten
(1798–1852) (fig. 8.8).21 Tegelsten had qualified as a master craftsman in St
Petersburg in 1825 and, from around 1833, much of his work was retailed by
the renowned company, Nicholls and Plincke, one of the most fashionable
shops in St Petersburg. Founded in 1789, the firm was owned by a succession
of Englishmen, including Charles Nicholls and William Plincke, and was par-
ticularly known for its fashionable designs and meticulously executed bronzes.
The shop regularly supplied the imperial cabinet with all manner of silver
goods and furnishings and was more familiarly known as the “English Shop” or
magasin anglais—it was awarded the imperial warrant in the 1840s.
19 Ibid.
20 The Hunter, centrepiece, modelled by Edward Hodges Baily, silver, 51 × 52.5 × 41.5 cm, State
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Inv. no. Э–7673.
21 Also known as “Tegelstein.”
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Inset into the top of the table is a circular panel of Russian hardstone, which
was made in the Peterhof Imperial Lapidary workshops and is listed in the
records at a value of 5,715 roubles.22 The beautiful and delicate flower bou-
quet is carved in relief from a range of different hardstones and the design also
incorporates insects and butterflies within a lapis lazuli Greek “key” border.
The design of the magnificent bouquet was supplied by the Viennese floral
painter Joseph August Satory (1803–68), who was commissioned to supply sev-
eral floral compositions by the Peterhof Lapidary factory. Satory had visited
St Petersburg in 1839 and participated in several academic exhibitions, where
his works caught the eye of Empress Alexandra, who subsequently acquired at
least one of his paintings. In 1842 one of his designs was used for the lapidary
top of a table made for the empress that was strikingly similar to that pre-
sented to Queen Victoria.
The guéridon arrived in December 1844 and was placed in pride of place
in the window bay of the White Drawing Room at Windsor Castle, one of the
principal reception rooms in the Semi-State Apartments. The queen viewed it
on December 2 and described it in her journal as “the pietra dura table which
the emperor of Russia has sent me.”23 At the same time and on the same day,
she viewed another of the emperor’s gifts in the Green Drawing Room, a large
porcelain vase (fig. 6.3) which had arrived in the same shipment from Russia
in one of eight cases transported on the steamer Mermaid. When the queen
viewed the vase, she described it as “a splendid and immense piece.”24 It was
indeed one of the largest vases executed by the Imperial Porcelain Factory in St
Petersburg, measuring over one and a half metres in height and just over one
metre in diameter. It is entirely made from porcelain, with the exception of the
handles and the rim, which are cast from gilt-bronze.
Emperor Nicholas I showed an unprecedented personal interest in the pro-
duction and decoration of the vase for Queen Victoria. Decorated with matt
and burnished gold, it is painted on each side with a view of one of the impe-
rial palaces by one of the porcelain factory artists, Nikolai Kornilovich Kornilov
(d. 1852). One painting is a view of Peterhof, the imperial palace established
by Peter the Great along the Gulf of Finland from St Petersburg, which was
directly copied from the original painting commissioned from the renowned
marine artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817–1900). This was one of six works ordered
by Nicholas I in 1844, which were then placed in the emperor’s private rooms at
22 Jonathan Marsden, Victoria & Albert: Art & Love (London: The Royal Collection, 2010), 241,
exhibition catalogue.
23 Queen Victoria’s Journal, December 2, 1844 (Princess Beatrice’s copies, 18: 184).
24 Ibid.
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Figure 6.3 Imperial Presentation Vase, c. 1844. Imperial Porcelain Manufactory, St

Petersburg. Hard paste porcelain with gilt-bronze mounts, 142 × 108 × 108 cm.
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Peterhof.25 He himself personally selected this specific view to be copied and

painted on to the vase for Victoria. The other side bears a topographical view
of Tsarskoe Selo [tsar’s village], the complex of imperial palaces in the country-
side outside St Petersburg. The watercolour view was prepared at the emper-
or’s request by Vasilii Sadovnikov (1800–79), and bears an inscription prepared
specially to serve as the model for the vase destined for Queen Victoria. There
was considerable debate between the emperor, via the Minister of the Imperial
court, Prince Petr Volkhovskii, and the factory as to what should be painted on
the sides of the vase between the main views, and this continued for several
weeks. The options, it appears, were the imperial monograms, floral ornament,
or a coat of arms. Eventually the decision was made to apply the British royal
arms.26 The queen was evidently very pleased with the vase and, in her letter of
thanks to the emperor, wrote that the “vase is superb, is placed in the drawing
room where we spend our evenings, and it is admired.”27
Records in Russian state archives confirm that by way of thanks for such a
magnificent vase the queen sent a gift in turn to the emperor.28 This was also
a gift of porcelain, in the form of the so-called “Orders” service. The queen
had noticed that while at Windsor the emperor had admired a service, off
which they must have dined, decorated with the British Orders of Chivalry,
which had been made for William IV in 1831 at the Worcester porcelain fac-
tory. Nicholas I would have been familiar with similar services in Russia com-
missioned by previous Russian sovereigns. In the 1770s Catherine the Great
had ordered from the Moscow porcelain manufactory of the English business-
man, Francis Gardner, services decorated with the ribbons, badges, and stars
of the most senior imperial orders of chivalry. These services were continu-
ally added to with replacement pieces during successive reigns, including that
of Nicholas I. For the emperor’s gift, the queen decided to commission the
Coalport factory, to which she and Prince Albert had placed many commis-
sions for themselves, to replicate the design of the service for King William IV.
This was heavily decorated in gilt with the same royal blue background, but
the decoration of the white reserves was substituted with the badges of the
Russian orders of St George, St Alexander Nevsky, St Vladimir, St Stanislas, The
White Eagle, and St Anne (fig. 6.4). Furthermore, in the centre, rather than the
royal arms, the senior Russian order of Chivalry was represented by the badge
of the Order of St Andrew.
25 RGIA, f. 468, op. 10, d. 4, l. 267.

26 RGIA, f. 468, op. 10, d. 5, l. 75.
27 Queen Victoria’s Journal, October 23, 1844, RA VIC/MAIN/Z/104/35.
28 RGIA, f. 469, op. 9, d. 4 (1845), l. 1785.
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Figure 6.4 Plate (part of a dessert service), 1845, Coalport Porcelain Company, Shropshire,
porcelain, polychrome painting, gilded, 2.7 × 25.5 × 25.5 cm (diameter), Royal
The original dessert service consisted of sixty-two pieces and was sent to the
Winter Palace, but the emperor decided to use it for large banquets and com-
missioned an additional one hundred and twenty-four pieces from the Imperial
Porcelain factory in St Petersburg. A substantial number of these pieces are
still located in the State Hermitage Museum. In a letter to the emperor dated
July 1, 1845, which accompanied the gift, Queen Victoria wrote: “these objects
[…] are my portrait by Winterhalter, and a porcelain service similar to that
which you admired at Windsor.”29 The former was almost certainly a copy of
Winterhalter’s portrait of 1843 in which the queen is depicted dressed in the
mantle of the Order of the Garter, wearing the Diamond Diadem, and with the
sovereign’s Sceptre and the Imperial State Crown on the cushion beside her.30
In the background, there is a glimpse of the south east corner of Buckingham
29 Victoria to Nicholas I, July 1, 1845, RA VIC/MAIN/Z/104/39.

30 Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Queen Victoria (1819–1901), 1843, oil on canvas, 272.5 × 161.1 cm,
Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 404388.
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Figure 6.5
Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Queen Victoria
with the Prince of Wales, 1846, oil on
canvas, 236.1 × 145.9 cm, Royal Collection
Trust, London.
Palace, which the emperor had visited during his stay in 1844. The queen
recorded in her journal on September 30, 1843 that she and Prince Albert had
looked at Winterhalter’s full length portraits “of us both, which are now quite
finished & really splendid, both as to painting & likeness.”31 Much later, in 1889,
she remarked it was the portrait that she liked best and, as a result, many cop-
ies of the portrait were made to be given away as state gifts.
The leading German court portraitist Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805–73)
was first brought to the attention of Queen Victoria by the queen of the Belgians,
and subsequently painted numerous portraits at the English court from 1842
until his death in 1873. The queen and Prince Albert admired his ability to cap-
ture likenesses so accurately, but Winterhalter is equally renowned for his abil-
ity to depict the rich fabrics and textiles which often adorn his royal sitters. In
a portrait of 1846 that the queen commissioned as a birthday present for her
prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) wears
a Russian-style blouse—an adaptation of a traditional seventeenth-century
Russian shirt (fig. 6.5). In her journal, Queen Victoria recorded on October 8,
31 Queen Victoria’s Journal, September 30, 1843 (Princess Beatrice’s copies, 16: 135).
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1843 that the Prince of Wales “appeared at luncheon in his new blouse, which
he is always to wear now. It is in fact a Russian dress.”32 The shirt may have been
a gift from Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich, the brother of Emperor Nicholas I,
who was visiting the royal family at that time.
Less than a year later, during Nicholas I’s visit in 1844, Queen Victoria
sketched Bertie (as Prince Albert was known) wearing a Russian style dress
and also the star and ribbon of the Grand Cross of St Andrew, with which
the emperor had presented him.33 This fashion for Russian dress, probably
inspired by the increasingly close relationship between the queen and the
Russian emperor persisted. In one of Winterhalter’s most famous group por-
traits of the royal family, painted in 1846, the Prince of Wales, standing next to
his mother, is once again attired in a Russian costume, this time in a rich red
fabric with gold braid.34
The aftermath of the 1844 visit was marked by yet more gifts exchanged
between Nicholas I and Queen Victoria. Following the visit, the emperor com-
missioned a portrait of himself as a gift for the queen, which was not com-
pleted until 1847.35 In the selection of the artist, Franz Krüger (1797–1857), it
is clear that the Empress Alexandra had profoundly influenced her husband.
Her taste, formed in the artistic milieu of early nineteenth-century Berlin,
meant that German painters flocked to Nicholas I’s court. The German archi-
tect, von Klenze, had designed the New Hermitage, and Nicholas I made an
extensive collection of contemporary German sculpture. As soon as the couple
were married and had moved into the Winter Palace, the emperor began to
add paintings by Krüger, who became a favoured court artist. The monumental
scale of the portrait is impressive—the canvas measures almost three and a
half metres in height and two and a half metres in width. Victoria recorded on
November 10, 1847 that “the Russian ambassador presented a fine, full length
portrait of the Emperor of Russia which is an excellent likeness.”36 At the time
of his visit three years earlier, she had described the emperor as: “Very striking.
He is still very handsome. Very tall with a very fine figure and beautiful grecian
profile.”37 Given its size, the painting was difficult to accommodate. As a result,
the queen commissioned the artist William Corden the Younger (1819–1900) to
32 Queen Victoria’s Journal, October 8, 1843 (Princess Beatrice’s copies, 16: 145).
33 The insignia remain in the Royal Collection today (RCIN 441514), along with Queen
Victoria’s sketch (RCIN 980024).
34 Franz Xaver Winterhalter, The Royal Family in 1846, 1846, oil on canvas, 250.5 × 317.3 cm,
Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 405413.
35 Franz Krüger, Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia (1796–1855), 1847, oil on canvas, 330.2 ×
223.5 cm, Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 406814.
36 Queen Victoria’s Journal, November 10, 1847 (Princess Beatrice’s copies, 24: 139).
37 Queen Victoria’s Journal, June 2, 1844 (Princess Beatrice’s copies, 17: 178).
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Figure 6.6 Laurits Regner Tuxen, The Family of Queen Victoria in 1887, 1887, oil on canvas,
165.7 × 226.1 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
create a copy, so that she could insert it in one of the hangs in the 1844 room,
one of the rooms which the emperor had occupied during his visit. The origi-
nal was later moved to Windsor Castle where, in the early twentieth century,
it hung in the Guard Chamber. It was taken down prior to the Second World
War and the canvas was rolled up and stored for almost eighty years, until it
was recently conserved for exhibition. Its spectacular rococo revival frame is
also noteworthy, with sprays of oak leaves and palm fronds. The decoration of
the frame is in the Russian style, with the imperial eagle adorning each corner.
By the early 1850s, the Royal Collection contained many remarkable works
of Russian art. The Great Exhibition of 1851, the first of the grand artistic and
industrial exhibitions, which was the brainchild of Prince Albert and mounted
under the Royal Patronage of Queen Victoria and her consort, afforded an
opportunity for the finest of Russian craftmanship to be displayed on the
world stage for the first time. On one of her more than twenty visits to the exhi-
bition, Queen Victoria was impressed by the plate, jewellery, and malachite
furniture, and recorded in her journal: “We went first to look at the Russian
exhibits which have just arrived and are very fine. Doors, chairs, a chimney
piece, a piano, as well as vases in malachite, specimens of plate, and some
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Figure 6.7 Frame with a portrait miniature of Maria Feodorovna, manufactured by Fabergé.
c. 1895, four-colour gold, guilloché enamel, ivory, watercolour, 9 × 7.8 × 7.3 cm,
Royal Collection Trust, London.
beautifully tasteful and very lightly set jewellery.”38 Indeed, Queen Victoria and
Prince Albert would go on to acquire one of the malachite works immediately
after the end of the exhibition (fig. 8.9). This was purchased by Prince Albert
on June 25, 1851.39
38 Queen Victoria’s Journal, June 11, 1851 (Princess Beatrice’s copies, 31: 290).
39 A vase and pedestal purchased by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at the Great
Exhibition of 1851, c. 1850, Demidov Lapidary Factory, St Petersburg, malachite and gilt-
bronze, 220 × 100 × 79 cm, Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 1709.
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The monumental vase and pedestal, along with the doors and two other
vases also displayed, were made in the Demidov Lapidary Factory. The noble
Demidov family were granted lands in the Ural mountains in the seventeenth
century, where they discovered metal and precious stone deposits in very large
quantities. By the nineteenth century, they had become proprietors of numer-
ous mines and foundries, and one of these, the famous Nizhny Tazhil mine,
was renowned for its malachite. As malachite is very brittle, when it is used
in large pieces it must be as a veneer, which is applied in what the Russians
refer to as a mosaic technique [mozaichnaia tekhnika] to a solid core. This was
often made of stone but occasionally could be made of metal, as in the case
of this vase. The skill required to make these vases is highly specialised and
such examples as these took many years to make. Indeed, the doors exhib-
ited at the Great Exhibition are said to have taken thirty men over a year to
create. The flamboyance of the gilt-bronze mounts and malachite combined
put these creations within a unique category within the European decorative
arts. The mounts on this piece, very much in “neo-Rococo” taste, are described
in the records of the creation of the vase as “Chinese,” and were made in the
Institute of Electroplating and Bronzework under the direction of I. Duval. The
Institute was started in 1844 by Nicholas I’s son-in law, Duke Maximilian von
Leuchtenberg.
It was Empress Alexandra Feodorovna who had sent the first monumental
malachite vase to enter the Royal Collection in the nineteenth century. This
gift was not made to Victoria but to her uncle, King George IV. It was designed
by Ivan Galberg, and, as sketches in the Royal Collection reveal, several alter-
native designs for the base were considered. Eventually, the palmette motif
was selected and gilt-bronze mounts for the pedestal which show the Russian
imperial arms on one side and the British royal arms on the other.40 This indi-
cates that this was a diplomatic piece, and one that conferred a strong mes-
sage. George IV was evidently pleased with the vase and had it placed it in
the central window bay of the new Large Drawing Room, now known as the
Crimson Drawing Room, in his newly decorated apartments at Windsor Castle.
A watercolour of the room by Joseph Nash reveals the work in situ.41
If relations between Britain and Russia had enjoyed some periods of stabil-
ity during the 1830s and 1840s, this was not to last, and Queen Victoria’s reign
would see one of the lowest points of British-Russian relations by the mid
40 Vase and pedestal, 1827, probably made in the Peterhof Imperial Lapidary Factory,
St Petersburg, malachite, gilt-bronze, 224 × 71 × 64 cm, Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 1708.
41 Joseph Nash, The Crimson Drawing Room, Windsor Castle, Royal Collection Trust, RCIN
705277.
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1850s. The Crimean War of 1853–56, which pitted Russia against the British, the
French, the Turks, and the Sardinians is often called the “first world war” of the
nineteenth century, due to the severity of the conflict and immense loss of life.
Queen Victoria took a close interest in the campaigns, as well as the welfare
of her servicemen, and the war had a long-lasting impact on her approach to
Russia. On hearing of the death of Nicholas I in 1855, she wrote in her journal:
“Poor Emperor, he has alas! the blood of many thousands on his conscience.”42
The powerful painting, The Roll Call, calling the Roll after an engagement,
Crimea, which depicts a roll call after the Battle of Inkerman on November 5,
1854, captured the public’s imagination when it was first exhibited by Elizabeth
Southerden Butler (1846–1933) at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1874. Such was
the intensity of interest and strength of feeling that it required a policeman to
guard it constantly while it was on display. Painted nearly two decades after the
end of the Crimean War, its power lay in the fact that it conveyed the reality
of the suffering of the ordinary soldier in the aftermath of conflict.43 Queen
Victoria acquired the painting and had it removed from the Royal Academy
so that she could show to it to Nicholas I’s successor as emperor, Alexander II,
who was visiting England in May that year.
By the time of her Golden Jubilee in 1887, Queen Victoria had married her
heir apparent, the Prince of Wales, to the sister of the Russian empress, and
her second son to the only surviving daughter of Emperor Alexander II. The
remarkable group portrait of the queen and her family by the Danish artist
Laurits Regner Tuxen (1853–1927) (fig. 6.6), is a powerfully dynastic image. It
encapsulates in oil the dynastic marriages which the queen’s children and
grandchildren had made, largely due to Queen Victoria’s role as the “grand-
mother of Europe,” as she was often known. The queen herself commissioned
the painting from the Danish court painter Tuxen, whose 1885 group portrait
of the king and queen of Denmark she had much admired. This latter portrait
was painted for Queen Victoria’s daughter-in-law, Alexandra of Denmark, who
had married the Prince of Wales in 1863. Three years later, in 1866, Alexandra’s
sister, Dagmar, married the future Emperor Alexander III of Russia, taking the
name Maria Feodorovna on her conversion to the Russian Orthodox faith. This
united by marriage the royal families of Britain, Russia, and Denmark, who
would meet at least annually at Fredensborg Palace in Copenhagen, where this
particular portrait was painted.
42 Queen Victoria’s Journal, March 2, 1855 (Princess Beatrice’s copies, 39: 135).
43 Elizabeth Southerden Butler, Lady Butler, The Roll Call, calling the Roll after an engage-
ment, Crimea, 1874, oil on canvas, 93.3 × 183.5 cm, Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 405915.
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Figure 6.8 Vase and Pedestal, 1872, Kolyvan Lapidary Factory, korgon porphyry, 43.5 × 56 ×
34 cm (alternative measurement), Royal Collection Trust, London.
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Queen Victoria formed a vast collection of portraits of her extended and

immediate family, often commissioning copies of portraits from their own
collections. To name but one example, she commissioned a portrait of
Empress Maria Feodorovna from Robert Antoine Müller, after the original
in Maria Feodorovna’s possession by Heinrich von Angeli.44 It was also dur-
ing this period in which dynastic connections were formed that works by the
renowned jeweller and goldsmith Peter Carl Fabergé began to enter the Royal
Collection. Maria Feodorovna and Alexander III had been the first members
of the Russian imperial family to commission works from the firm, includ-
ing a frame with portrait miniature of the empress (fig. 6.7), and a topaz and
nephrite (jade) portrait bust. Queen Victoria—largely because she was influ-
enced by her relatives in Denmark and Russia—began to purchase pieces from
Fabergé herself, including miniature enamelled and gem-set eggs which she
would give to her extended family at Easter.
The close family ties with Russia established in the 1860s became closer still
in the 1870s, when the only direct dynastic marriage between a child of the sov-
ereign of the British royal family, and a child of the Russian emperor took place.
Queen Victoria’s second eldest son, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, was
married to Maria Alexandrovna, the only surviving daughter of Alexander II.
Aside from the rather complex and protracted negotiations over the marriage,
the event caused a large influx of Russian works of art into the queen’s collec-
tion. The emperor gave a portrait of his daughter to the queen (fig. 12.3), whom,
until then, she had only seen in photographs in black and white.45 She was
not to meet her until three months after the couple were married in Russia.
Queen Victoria described the work, which arrived by messenger from Russia,
as “the long expected portrait […] a lovely picture ½ length, and beautifully
painted.”46 Painted by Gustav Richter (1823–84), a German artist working at
the Russian court, the portrait of Maria Alexandrovna was copied in miniature
and these were given as official presents from the couple or as wedding gifts.
In her praise of Richter’s painting, Victoria described it as “beautiful &
quite worthy of Winterhalter.”47 It bears a striking resemblance to another
Winterhalter portrait of a Russian sitter in the Royal Collection, that of Grand
44 Robert Antoine Müller, Princess Dagmar of Denmark, Maria Feodorovna, Tsarina of Russia
(1847–1928), 1876–77, oil on canvas, 90.1 × 72.7 cm, Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 404018.
45 Gustav Karl Ludwig Richter, Maria, Duchess of Edinburgh, Grand Duchess of Russia, 1873–
1874, oil on canvas, 145.8 × 94.7 cm, Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 405024.
46 Queen Victoria’s Journal, January 18, 1874, RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W).
47 Queen Victoria’s Journal, January 23, 1874, RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W).
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Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna, wife of Alexander II’s younger brother.48 The lat-
ter work is a tour-de-force by Winterhalter, capturing at once the elegance of
the sitter, who was considered a great beauty, as well as conveying the wonder-
ful textures of lace, silk, and pearls. Richter appears to have borrowed not only
the pose but also the interest in texture, albeit in a looser and more impres-
sionistic way.
The queen placed the portrait at the end of her dining table at Osborne
House, surrounded by ribbons in the Russian colours, on the day of her son’s
wedding in the cathedral chapel of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. She com-
missioned the Russian artist, Nicholas Chevalier, to record the marriage service
in a painting (fig. 12.6).49 In addition, the artist produced numerous sketches,
one of which Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, sent to his mother to enable
her to understand the Orthodox marriage ceremony (fig. 12.8). The sketch has
paper flaps added at the front which can be lifted, allowing the queen to follow
the different stages of the ceremony.
When Queen Victoria finally met her new daughter-in-law in England, three
months after the wedding, most of her concerns about the union were dissi-
pated. It was a relief that the general population, who were feeling somewhat
bruised after the Crimean War, seemed to accept the new royal princess. In the
familial, political, and diplomatic negotiations prior to the union, there had
been many misgivings on both sides. In a letter written by the queen’s Private
Secretary the previous year, he refers to the “great many little difficulties and
trouble which considering she [Maria] is the spoilt daughter of a semi-Eastern
despot may grow into larger ones.”50
Timed to arrive during Emperor Alexander II’s first visit to see his recently
married daughter in May 1874 were numerous gifts to different members of the
royal family. These included a personal gift to Queen Victoria, which recalls the
monumental hardstone vases presented earlier in her reign. The vase (fig. 6.8)
is based on a design for a silver two-handled cup and is cut from korgon por-
phyry, particularly renowned for its violet-grey hue and especially beloved by
Alexander II. The base, in a contrasting green porphyry, bears a strong resem-
blance to a much later pedestal, supporting a vase made by Fabergé which is
now in the boardroom of the New York Stock Exchange. This latter vase was a
gift from Emperor Nicholas II in 1904 in gratitude for the launch of a bond that
48 Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna of Russia (1830–1911), 1859,
oil on canvas, 147.5 × 109 cm, Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 408615.
49 Nicholas Chevalier, The Marriage of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, 23 January 1874,
1874–75, oil on canvas, 168.4 × 138.5 cm, Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 404476.
50 Sir Henry Ponsonby to Lady Ponsonby, June 15, 1873, RA VIC/ADDA36/585.
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Figure 6.9 Laurits Regner Tuxen, The Marriage of Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia,
26th November 1894, 1895–96, oil on canvas, 169.4 × 139.9 cm, Royal Collection
Trust, London.
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had enabled him to raise millions of roubles to build the Russian railway sys-
tem. The vase and pedestal for Queen Victoria took eighteen months to carve
and is remarkable for its crispness and subtlety, particularly in the interplay of
matt and shiny surfaces. Once again, she positioned it in pride of place in the
Crimson Drawing Room, in the space which had previously been occupied by
the malachite vase given to King George IV by Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.
The Russian Orthodox faith of Maria Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh
prompted the creation of the only Russian architectural scheme in a British
royal palace. This was made in the home she shared with Prince Albert, Duke
of Edinburgh at Clarence House, alongside St James’s Palace. The interior was
decorated in the traditional Russian style and the iconostasis contained icons
commissioned from von Neff (fig. 12.6). Designed purely for Maria’s personal
devotion, the creation of the chapel was nonetheless a diplomatic gesture on
the part of the queen, who commented: “I trust that the marriage of my son
with the daughter of the Russian Emperor will tend to strengthen the ties of
friendship between two great Christian nations.”51 The chapel was dismantled
much later, and very little evidence of it survives within the current architec-
tural scheme at Clarence House.
The final dynastic marriage involving Queen Victoria’s family with the
Romanovs was between her favourite granddaughter, Princess Alix of Hesse,
daughter of Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Alice, Duchess of Hesse, and
Emperor Nicholas II of Russia on November 26, 1894. On the day of their wed-
ding, Queen Victoria stood at a dinner for the Russian anthem to be played
while she was dining at Windsor Castle, and she reflected in her journal, “how
impossible it seemed that gentle, little, simple Alicky should be the great
empress of Russia.”52 The queen once more commissioned Tuxen to capture
the solemnity and beauty of the wedding in a painting (fig. 6.9), as well as to
make careful likenesses of all those present, most of whom were her own rela-
tions. Tuxen himself recorded in his autobiography how he was intoxicated by
the beauty of the scene: the singing, the richness of the colours, the light, and
the golden fabrics.53 Among the numerous first-hand accounts of the prepara-
tions for the ceremony which were received by Queen Victoria is a letter with
sketches from the bride’s sister, Grand Duchess Sergei [Elizaveta Feodorovna,
formerly known as Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine]. She describes how beau-
tiful the bride will look, but also conveys the great sadness of the occasion,
51 “Summary of This Morning’s News,” Pall Mall Gazette, no. 2923 (June 30, 1874): 6.
52 Queen Victoria’s Journal, November 26, 1894 (Princess Beatrice’s copies, 100: 142).
53 Laurits Tuxen, En Malers Arbejde gennem tredsindstyve Aar fortalt af ham selv. Med
Billeder. Malerungdommen tilegnet. (Copenhagen: Jespersen og Pio, 1928), 150–58.
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Figure 6.10
Diamond Jubilee Brooch, 1897,
manufactured by Fabergé, silver, gold,
rose and brilliant diamonds, sapphires,
9.8 × 3.4 × 1.8 cm, Royal Collection Trust,
London.
which took place just two weeks after the death of Alexander III, father of
Nicholas II.
As Queen Victoria’s long reign drew to an end, the strong family connec-
tions which she had forged dominated the relationship between the two sov-
ereigns. But nonetheless, country and responsibility of state always came first.
In October 1896, Nicholas and Alexandra made a visit to the queen in Scotland,
while she was resident at Balmoral Castle. It would be the last time that they
saw her. Diplomatic talks were blended with family gatherings and military
displays, as captured in an album of photographs which recorded the visit. A
few months later, the imperial couple sent a silver-gilt and enamelled note-
book case to the queen, made by the Fabergé firm.54 Its first page was inscribed
by the couple with a dedication for Christmas. The following year, Queen
Victoria chose to use the notebook for her Diamond Jubilee celebrations on
June 22, 1897. Inside the following pages after the queen’s own signature are
recorded the signature of every sovereign and every royal prince or princess
who attended the event.
54 Notebook, Johann Victor Aarne, made by Fabergé, before 1896, silver-gilt, guilloché
enamel, moonstones, 1.8 × 16.2 × 12.6 cm, Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 4819.
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Further gifts of Fabergé were sent by the couple, including a desk clock
with panels of delicately engraved rock crystal.55 Finally, the emperor and
empress gave Queen Victoria a magnificent silver, gold, rose diamond, and
cabochon sapphire brooch, as their official Diamond Jubilee gift (fig. 6.10).56
The jewel sums up the long and complex relationship between Queen Victoria
and Russia, with its resulting acquisition of Russian art, which now forms a
part of the Royal Collection. Like the more monumental works of decorative
art, such as the large porcelain and hardstone vases, the brooch encapsulates
the best of contemporary Russian craftsmanship using the finest raw mate-
rials. Moreover, its design is overtly Russian. Within the heart-shaped dia-
mond mount are Slavonic characters subtly representing the figure sixty for
the achievement of Queen Victoria’s sixty years of reign. It also mimics the
duality of the relationship: it marks a state occasion and acknowledges Queen
Victoria’s achievements, but the figure sixty is held within a heart, reflecting
the increasingly close dynastic and family ties between the respective sover-
eigns that had evolved during the century. The emperor and empress commis-
sioned Fabergé to make the brooch, showing once again the careful attention
of donor to recipient which characterised many of the gifts given to the queen.
In response, Queen Victoria chose to wear this special gift close to her heart
on the day that she celebrated her Diamond Jubilee. In their telegram offer-
ing congratulations on June 23, 1897, Nicholas and Alexandra wrote the simple
words: “Touched you wore our present.”57
Bibliography
Archives
Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi imperii [Archive of Foreign
Policy of the Russian Empire] (“AVPRI”)
Sir Robert Peel to Ernst Philipp Graf von Brunnow, Sir Robert Peel to Ernst Philipp Graf
von Brunnow, January 14, 1814. f. 133, op. 468 (1814), d. 6840, ll. 370, 18.
55 Desk clock, Mikhail Perkhin, Fabergé. 1896–1900. Rock crystal mounted with gold, silver-
gilt, enamel, rose diamonds, and rubies, 11.6 × 12.5 × 9.9 cm. Royal Collection Trust, RCIN
40100.
56 The entry for the brooch in Queen Victoria’s Inventory of Jewels indicates that the gift
arranged by the emperor and empress was made jointly on behalf of themselves and the
other grandchildren, i.e., the Grand Duke and Duchess of Hesse, the Grand Duke and
Duchess Serge, Prince and Princess Louis of Battenberg, and Princess Christian. See
Garrard, Inventory of Jewels & c. the Property of Her Majesty the Queen, London, 1896.
57 RA VIC/MAIN/H/48/39.
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Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv [Russian State

Historical Archives, St Petersburg] (“RGIA”)
f. 468, op. 10, d. 4, l. 267.
f. 468, op. 10, d. 5, l. 75.
f. 469, op. 9, d. 4 (1845), l. 1785.
The Royal Archives

Queen Victoria’s Journal (Lord Esher’s typescripts / Princess Beatrice’s copies):
RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W)
RA VIC/MAIN/Z/104/39
www.queenvictoriasjournals.org, accessed July 14, 2021.
RA VIC/ADDA36/585.
RA VIC/MAIN/H/48/39.
RA VIC/MAIN/Z/104/39.
Primary Sources
The Letters of Queen Victoria. Edited by George Earle Buckle, vol. 5. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2014, second edition. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO
9781139923729.020, accessed October 21, 2020.
Tuxen, Laurits. En Malers Arbejde gennem tredsindstyve Aar fortalt af ham selv. Med
Billeder. Malerungdommen tilegnet. Copenhagen: Jespersen og Pio, 1928.
Secondary Sources
Cross, Anthony. “By the Banks of the Neva.” Chapters from the Lives and Careers of the
Cross, Anthony. St Petersburg and the British: The City through the Eyes of British Visitors
and Residents. London: Frances Lincoln, 2008.
Digout, Amy. “Artful Diplomacy: Nicholas I’s New Hermitage in the Age of the Public
Museum.” Ph.D dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2011.
Lincoln, W. Bruce. Nicholas I. Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias. Bloomington
and London: Indiana University Press, 1978.
Marriott, J. A. R. Anglo-Russian Relations 1689–1943. London: Methuen & Co., 1944.
Marsden, Jonathan. Victoria & Albert: Art & Love. London: The Royal Collection, 2010.
Mavrodina, Natal’ia M. Iskusstvo russkikh kamnerezov XVIII–XIX vekov: katalog kollekt-
sii. St Petersburg: Izd. Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha, 2007.
Mavrodina, Natal’ia M. Proizvedeniia russkogo kamnereznogo iskusstva za predelami
Rossii. Spravochnik. St Petersburg: Izd. Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha, 2019.
Middleton, K. W. B. Britain and Russia. An Historical Essay. London: Hutchinson & Co.,
1947.
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Morgan, Gerald. Anglo-Russian Rivalry in Central Asia, 1810–1895. Oxford: Routledge,

1981.
Neilson, Keith. Britain and the last tsar: British policy and Russia, 1894–1917. Oxford:
Norman, Geraldine. The Hermitage: The Biography of a Great Museum. New York:
Fromm, 1998.
Piotrovsky, Boris. The Hermitage: Its History and Collection. Toronto: Granada, 1982.
“Summary of This Morning’s News,” Pall Mall Gazette, no. 2923 (June 30, 1874): 6.
The Royal Collection. Online catalogue. https://www.rct.uk/collection.
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Chapter 7
Alfred, Lord Tennyson and an Imperial Russian Gift

Olga Sobolev
For many, the image of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92)—the longest serving
Poet Laureate appointed to royal office—is associated with his bronze statue
by George Frederic Watts (1903), situated in the grounds of Lincoln Cathedral
(fig. 7.1). The author of Ulysses (1833) and The Charge of the Light Brigade (1854)
is depicted in a moment of deep contemplation, his gaze fixed on a small
flower in his hand—a reference to his poem “Flower in the crannied wall”
(1863).1 An eye-catching feature of the statue is Tennyson’s dog, who looks up
at him expectantly, as if keenly interested and ready to take part in her mas-
ter’s reflections. It is not widely known that this dog, a Siberian wolfhound, or
borzoi, was a gift from the Russian imperial family. It was presented to the poet
around 1884, after a reading he gave to a group of royal visitors that included
Alexandra, Princess of Wales, her sister Dagmar (Empress Maria Feodorovna),
and Emperor Alexander III.
Tennyson called the dog Karenina. The name bore distinct cultural con-
notations and occasioned a fair amount of public and personal controversy,
examined in this chapter within the context of the growing turbulence in
British-Russian relations, strong anti-Russian sentiment, and political tension,
as well as against the backdrop of certain countervailing cultural trends. A fur-
ther objective is to expand the discussion into the field of cultural diplomacy
and, more specifically, the relationship with material culture. The case study
is then analysed within a wider framework of the royal exchange of animals
(here, the rare borzoi hounds then fashionable in Britain), paying particular
attention to its function and significance for the practice of courtly gift-giving.2
1 The phrase “flower in the crannied wall” is sometimes used in a metaphorical sense for the
idea of seeking holistic and grander principles from constituent parts and their connec-
tions. See Robert Brandom, “Leibniz and Degrees of Perception,” Journal of the History of
Philosophy 19, no. 4 (1981): 447–79.
2 See, for example, Harriet Rudolph, “Entangled Objects and Hybrid Practices? Material
Culture as a New Approach to the History of Diplomacy,” in Material Culture in Modern
Diplomacy from the 15th to the 20th Century, ed. Harriet Rudolph and Gregor M. Metzig
(Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2016), 1.

162 Olga Sobolev
Figure 7.1 George Frederic Watts, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1903, bronze, Lincoln Cathedral.
WIKIMEDIA / PHOTOGRAPH TANYA DEDYUKINA / CREATIVE
COMMONS CC BY 3.0
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Alfred, Lord Tennyson and an Imperial Russian Gift 163
Figure 7.2 “Celebrities of the Day – Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate,” reproduced in The Graphic,
March 22, 1884.
Tennyson and All Things Russian
Russian overtones were not particularly in tune with the major currents in
British politics of the mid-1880s, often associated with the aftermath of the
Great Eastern Crisis, which brought to a head the rivalry between Russia and
Britain for dominance in Central Asia. At a time when the conflict was descend-
ing into a serious threat of military confrontation, when Russian troops were
advancing ever closer to British India, and the press was conducting a hysteri-
cal anti-Russian campaign, any association with the Northern foe—whether
political or cultural—could not but be detrimental for the public standing of
the Poet Laureate, who was commonly regarded as a cultural mouthpiece of
the royal court.
Karenina, nonetheless, effectively became a hallmark of the poet’s image
in these years, largely owing to Frederick George Kitton’s renowned drawing,
in which Tennyson was depicted in his study with Karenina in the forefront
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164 Olga Sobolev
(fig. 7.2).3 In March 1884, this print, engraved by Charles Roberts, appeared as
part of the “Celebrities of the Day” series of The Graphic in connection with
Tennyson’s peerage announced in January of the same year.4 Tellingly, its
position on an unnumbered page in the middle of the periodical suggested
that it was intended as a memento—a detachable keepsake to be removed
and held dear by the reader (this impression was enhanced by the presence
of the authenticating facsimile of the poet’s signature in the margin). In 1885
the circulation of the image increased when it was turned into a platinotype
fine-art photograph entitled “Alfred Lord Tennyson in His Study;”5 in 1886 the
same image became available to Russian readers when it was reproduced by
the popular at the time Nov’ [Novelty] journal.6 Karenina was invariably men-
tioned in the published memoirs of Tennyson’s friends, who described her as a
“beautiful and picturesque creature”—“the constant companion of her master
in his last walks over the Freshwater downs.”7
Surprising as it may seem, the poet’s choice of such an echt-Russian name
for the dog can hardly be attributed to his cultural preferences and personal
inclinations, for Tennyson cannot remotely be portrayed as a Russophile or
even a tentative Russian supporter, rather, the reverse. Russia was a country for
which he seemed to have a life-long antipathy and distrust, and the unequivo-
cal remark he made, recorded by the Irish poet William Allingham, became
3 Charlotte Boyce, Páraic Finnerty, and Anne-Marie Millim, Victorian Celebrity Culture and
Tennyson’s Circle (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2013), 38.
4 “Celebrities of the Day – Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate,” The Graphic 747 (March 22, 1884):
[n.p.]. Later, this sketch was reprinted in The Daily Graphic (October 7, 1892), and in Harper’s
Weekly (October 15, 1892): 988, where the inscription says: “Lord Tennyson in His Study as He
appeared at the Age of Seventy-Four” [i.e., in 1883–84].
5 Tennyson in Lincoln. A Catalogue of the Collections in the Research Centre, 2 vols, ed. Nancie
Campbell (Lincoln: Tennyson Society, 1971), 2: entry 6057 (8). The catalogue’s attribution of
this platinotype photograph to S. [Samuel] Hollyer is presumed to be erroneous, because
Samuel Hollyer, the elder brother of the Hollyer family of engravers, moved to the United
States as early as 1866. Most likely, the photograph was authored by his younger brother, the
photographer and engraver Frederick Hollyer, known for his portraits of literary and artistic
figures of late Victorian England.
6 “Chto novago. Al’fred Tennison,” Nov’ 9, no. 12 (1886): 449, quoted in Andrei N. Girivenko,
“Al’fred Tennison v Rossii: k istorii vospriiatiia,” in Materialy po istorii russkoi kul’tury XIX–XX
vekov, ed. G. A. Nevelev (Briansk: Brianskii pedagogicheskii institut, 1993), 24.
7 V. C. Scott O’Connor, “Tennyson and His Friends at Freshwater,” Century Illustrated Monthly
Magazine 33 (New Series) (December 1897): 240–68 (256). See also: Charles Tennyson,
“Memoirs of My Grandfather,” in Tennyson: Interviews and Recollections, ed. Norman Page
(London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press, 1983), 166; Wilfrid Ward, “Tennyson: a reminis-
cence,” in Tennyson: Interviews and Recollections, ed. Norman Page (London and Basingstoke:
The Macmillan Press, 1983), 99; Arthur Coleridge, “Fragmentary Notes of Tennyson’s Talk,” in
Tennyson and His Friends, ed. Hallam Lord Tennyson (London: Macmillan and Co, 1911), 256.
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proverbial among the circle of his friends and family members. “I have hated
Russia ever since I was born,” Tennyson commented on various occasions, “and
I’ll hate her till I die.”8 A convinced liberal and reformist, Tennyson was never
at ease with what he considered the barbaric authoritarianism of the tsarist
regime. In this context one can mention his condemnation of Russian politi-
cal influence in the Balkans, and his enthusiasm for the democratic causes
of Greece and, later on, Montenegro.9 This was expressed in such poems as
“Exhortation to the Greeks” of 1827 and “Montenegro” of 1877 (rated by the
author as “first among his sonnets”).10 Two comparable poems on the Polish
struggle against the Russians, “Blow ye the trumpet, gather from afar” and
“Poland,” appeared in 1832.
This deeply engrained preconception was also the reason for Tennyson’s
reluctance to produce a welcoming poem on the occasion of the royal wedding
of Queen Victoria’s second son, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, and Princess
Maria Alexandrovna, only daughter of Emperor Alexander II.11 According to
Lady Augusta Stanley’s letter to the queen of March 4, 1874:
Tennyson did not feel, when we saw him before Xmas, that he could put his
thoughts into a harmonious shape—and Your Majesty knows how impatient of
all considerations but the breathing of the Gods his muse is, at least how very
little at his own command or under his control.12
The wedding took place in St Petersburg on January 23, 1874. On March 7, the
couple returned to England and the Poet Laureate’s verses appeared in The
Times on the same day. Encouraged by laudatory telegrams from Windsor
Castle, which affirmed “that they all liked the ‘Welcome Alexandrovna,’”
Tennyson went to attend the formal procession of the duke and duchess’s entry
in London.13 Sadly, it was a dull day with snowy weather. “The lack of sunshine
8 William Allingham, A Diary, ed. Helen P. Allingham and Dollie Radford (London:
Macmillan, 1907), 265.
9 Francis J. Sypher, “Politics in the Poetry of Tennyson,” Victorian Poetry 14, no. 2 (1976): 101–
12; see also: Benjamin De Mott, “The General, the Poet and the Inquisition,” Kenyon Review
24 (1962): 442–56; Vesna Goldsworthy, ‘Tennyson and Montenegro,” Tennyson Research
Bulletin 7, no. 1 (1997): 6–17.
10 Hallam Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir, by his son, 2 vols (London: Macmillan,
1897), 2: 217.
11 For the history of the wedding, see Stephen Patterson’s account in Chapter 12 of this
volume.
12 Dear and Honoured Lady: The Correspondence between Queen Victoria and Alfred Tennyson,
ed. Hope Dyson and Charles Tennyson (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University
Press, 1971), 92.
13 Hallam Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson, 2: 155.
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166 Olga Sobolev
took away all the splendour from the house decorations and the helmets,”
he reported, and he formed a rather unimpressed opinion of the “Russian
Princess,” who was nothing more than “large and Imperial” in his view.14 The
same less than positive note resonated in his outlook on the newly established
political alliance. Although the poem was styled as an official celebratory ode,
it was suffused with the poet’s negativity regarding Russian imperial intentions.
The Son of him with whom we strove for power –

Whose will is lord thro’ all his world-domain –
Who made the serf a man, and burst his chain –
Has given our Prince his own Imperial Flower,
Alexandrovna.
And welcome, Russian flower, a people’s pride,

To Britain, when her flowers begin to blow!
From love to love, from home to home you go,
From mother unto mother, stately bride,
Marie-Alexandrovna.
[…]
Shall fears and jealous hatreds flame again?

Or at thy coming, Princess, everywhere,
The blue heaven break, and some diviner air
Breathe thro’ the world and change the hearts of men,
Alexandrovna?
But hearts that change not, love that cannot cease,

And peace be yours, the peace of soul in soul!
And howsoever this wild world may roll,
Between your peoples truth and manful peace,
Alfred—Alexandrovna.15
A feeling of prejudice and distrust is perceived throughout the poem. The

recent political tension is evoked in the very first line, which presents the
princess by reference to her grandfather, Emperor Nicholas I, and, by associa-
tion, to the British-Russian confrontation in the Crimean War—the one “with
whom we strove for power.” Alexander II is credited for freeing the serfs in the
opening stanza (“Who made the serf a man”); nonetheless, the notion of free-
dom valued in England (“Where men are bold and strongly say their say”) is
said to make this land “strange” or alien to somebody brought up in the Russian
14 Ibid., 156.
15 Alfred Tennyson, “A Welcome to Her Royal Highness Marie Alexandrovna, Duchess of
Edinburgh,” The Times (March 7, 1874): 5.
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tradition (“And Love has led thee to the stranger land”). This is followed by a
series of rhetorical questions, or, more precisely, some thinly veiled scepticism,
concerning the prospects of the British-Russian alliance (“Shall fears and jeal-
ous hatreds flame again?”), as well as the possibility of altering one’s attitude
towards the old political rival (“change the hearts of men, Alexandrovna?”),
which, reading between the lines, will be always in opposition to such funda-
mentally democratic tenets as “truth and manful peace.”
Tennyson’s overtly circumspect views on Russia, however, were also
informed by some deeply personal factors. His long life, in the main devoid
of challenges, happened to be framed at both ends by two piquant incidents
associated with the Russian imperial court. The first was a controversial story
of Tennyson’s father, George Clayton Tennyson, who in 1801 found himself in
Russia accompanying Lord St Helens, a British emissary sent to attend the cor-
onation ceremony of Emperor Alexander I. At a reception graced with numer-
ous Russian dignitaries, George Tennyson, having drunk his fill of vodka and
fine wine, declared to the party that, in England, everyone was well aware that
the late emperor [i.e. Paul I, Alexander’s father] had been brutally murdered in
Mikhailovsky Castle, and that it was Count Zubov who had struck him down,
while Benningsen and Count Pahlen were known to have strangled him in his
room. As the story goes: “An appalling hush fell for a moment upon the table,
and then Lord St Helens at once rushed into some subject discreetly foreign to
the sixth commandment.”16 A little later, when the guests were invited to have
tea, St Helens found a pretext to keep George Tennyson behind, explaining that
those whom he had just casually accused of regicide were in fact all present at
the table, and advising him to escape from Moscow that very instant to avoid
suffering the same fate as the late emperor:
No flag can protect you in such a country as this […] Go to a Scotch merchant,
whom I know just outside of Odessa […] and he will conceal you until I can con-
trive to get you out of the country, if it be possible […] Don’t even stop to change
your clothes.17
After crossing the frosty streets of Moscow and then travelling in haste through
the Russian countryside to the port of Odessa, Tennyson’s father was shivering
with fever and delirium. For weeks he remained between life and death and
“remembered the wild country-people dancing round his bed with magical
16 M. Gordon McCabe, “Personal Reflections of Alfred Lord Tennyson,” Century Illustrated

Monthly Magazine 43 (New Series), no. 5 (March 1902): 722–37 (734).
17 Ibid., 734.
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168 Olga Sobolev
Figure 7.3 “The Royal Banquet in the Saloon of the ‘Pembroke Castle’ at Copenhagen,”
reproduced in The Graphic, September 29, 1883.
incantations.”18 Finally, a much-awaited courier from Lord St Helens found

him in the town and set about escorting him to the safety of a British ship.
The fact that George Tennyson had travelled to Russia is confirmed in vari-
ous records; the rest was transcribed from his own narrative and was given a
slightly different inflection each time the story was publicly retold.19 George
Tennyson used to recite it on various occasions and repeated it again and again
to his sons, so that in the end it acquired the aura of a family legend. It evi-
dently made a strong impression on the imagination of the young poet, who
seemed to believe in his father’s adventure, reading into it all the perils of deal-
ing with this precarious land.

19 Alternative versions of this account can be found in: Hallam Tennyson, Alfred Lord
Tennyson, 2: 147–48; Charles Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson (London and New York:
Macmillan, 1949), 8–9; McCabe, “Personal Reflections of Alfred Lord Tennyson,” 734–35;
and Echoes of the Eighties: Leaves from the diary of a Victorian Lady (London: Eveleigh
Nash Company, 1921), 66. They are analysed in Patrick Waddington, Tennyson and Russia
(Lincoln: Tennyson Society Research Centre, 1967), 1–4.
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The second incident happened much later in the life of the Poet Laureate,
when, in September 1883, seventy-four-year-old Tennyson was sailing through
the North Sea on board HMS Pembroke Castle at the invitation of the Prime
Minister, William Gladstone (fig. 7.3).20 When the ship made a brief stop
in Copenhagen, they received a welcoming visit from the royal court of the
Danish king, Christian IX. After lunch, the group of visitors, among whom
there were some royal relatives from Greece, Russia, and Britain, moved to a
parlour, where Tennyson, at the request of Alexandra, Princess of Wales, was
invited to read “The Bugle Song” and “The Grandmother.”21 The room was
fairly small, and he found himself squeezed between Alexandra (daughter of
the Danish king) and her sister Dagmar, who in 1866 had married Emperor
Alexander III (he was also at the reading, standing right in front of the Poet
Laureate). Tennyson had never met the empress. Being very short-sighted, he
took her for one of the royal maids of honour, and, while reading his poems,
lightly tapped out the rhythm on his neighbour’s knee. When he had finished,
the empress politely thanked him for the pleasure, at which Tennyson softly
patted her on the shoulder, maintaining affectionately: “My dear girl, that is
very kind of you, very kind.” It is reported that she could not refrain from a
little smile, while the emperor was completely taken aback.22Another version
of the same anecdote makes it even more awkward for the poet: according to
certain records, Tennyson had barely been reading for two minutes when one
of the young Russian princes exclaimed in a conspicuously loud voice: “Now
[that] I have heard him, Mama, may I go?”23 In vain could the cheering and
triumphant accolades of the Imperial Navy on the Pembroke Castle’s departure
from Denmark the day after dispel a little mishap like that.
One can only speculate as to the impression that Tennyson’s reading made
on the imperial couple, though according to Hallam Tennyson, the empress
“paid him a very pretty compliment,” and, in the words of others, even inquired
whether he would consider coming to see them in St Petersburg.24 Concerning
the emperor, he could not surely have been vexed too much by the poet, as
he was reported to have spoken to him later that evening, remarking on his
20 HMS Pembroke Castle was a luxury boat owned by Sir Donald Currie, a Scottish ship-
owner, philanthropist, and politician. During this cruise in September 1883, Currie enter-
tained twenty-nine members of Europe’s royal families.
22 For alternative versions of these events see: Hallam Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson,
2: 282–84; Charles Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, 470; McCabe, “Personal Reflections of
Alfred Lord Tennyson,” 736; Sir Mountstuart E. Grant Duff, Notes from a Diary, 1892–1895,
2 vols (London: John Murray, 1904), 2: 246; “Mr. Gladstone’s Holiday Cruise,” The Graphic
(September 29, 1883): 311; Echoes of the Eighties, 65–66.
23 Echoes of the Eighties, 65–66.
24 Hallam Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson, 2: 283; Echoes of the Eighties, 66.
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170 Olga Sobolev
“love for the Danes, who [were] simple people” and on his envy of their king.25
Moreover, it was only slightly after this reading that Tennyson received his
Siberian wolfhound from the Russian imperial kennels—a symbol of apprecia-
tion and grace from the imperial family and indeed personally from Alexander,
and a distinct token of esteem for Tennyson’s country, which treated the poet
as its cultural ambassador.26
To explain the overall significance of this gift, something should be said
about the general protocol of gift-giving accepted at the Russian court.
Gift-giving and Cultural Diplomacy at the Russian Imperial Court
The practice of courtly gift-giving as an expression of His Majesty’s grace and

favour (including state diplomatic gifts, as well as those to distinguished impe-
rial subjects) was a long-held tradition, dating back through generations of the
families of the Russian tsars. Until the late eighteenth century, the protocol
was relatively free, and the range of offerings, as well as the list of their recipi-
ents, largely depended on the personal wishes and preferences of the rulers.27
In the first half of the nineteenth century the procedure became much stricter,
and a special branch (Section Two) of His Majesty’s Imperial Household Office
was established on the orders of Alexander I (March 28, 1819), charged with the
management and administration of the imperial stock of “soft [fur] garments
and the provision of gifts.”28 In less than ten years this branch grew into a sep-
arate Chamber Office (instituted in 1827) forming part of the newly created
Ministry of the Imperial Court.29 The amount of money that passed through its
books was genuinely colossal, since gifts, in the form of jewellery and precious
objects, were to symbolise the wealth and the glory of the Russian sovereigns
and the state. Thus, in 1826, the overall stock of the gifts kept at the disposal
of the monarchs reached the huge value of 2,228,282 roubles, making up

26 Scott O’Connor, “Tennyson and His Friends at Freshwater,” 256; Waddington, Tennyson
and Russia, 39.
27 In 1797, the coronation year of Paul I, 148,713 roubles were signed off as a payment to a
crown jeweller, M. Duval, “for some miscellaneous diamond objects.” See Marina N. Lopato,
Iuveliry starogo Peterburga (St Petersburg: Gosudarstvennyi Ermitazh, 2006), 92.
28 Igor’ Zimin, Tsarskie den’gi (Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf, 2011), 88.
29 The Chamber Office, established to manage the stock of imperial regalia, crown dia-
monds, precious jewellery, and fur garments, was divided into two sections and two
store-chambers. The first was designated for crown diamonds, the second for the stock of
jewellery and furs. In 1887 a third section was added: an outlet of the Imperial Manufactory
of semi-precious stones (see Zimin, Tsarskie den’gi, 88–89).
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approximately twenty per cent of the entire budget allocated for the imperial
court.30
In the early 1830s, Nicholas I made a further attempt to regulate imperial
gift-giving procedures, and it was at that time that the term “gifts according
to rank” was coined by the officials of the Chamber Office. In addition, and to
save money, the costs of the gifts were now to be passed on to the Ministries
or State Departments, which took the initiative of nominating their employ-
ees for an award. A strict hierarchy was established by the Imperial Order of
July 31, 1859. This distinguished between two types of gifts: those marked by His
Majesty’s personal emblem and supplied by the Chamber Office, and so-called
“ordinary” gifts, coming from the budget of the employee’s own administrative
division.31 The former could be granted exclusively to those at or above a cer-
tain level in the Imperial Table of Ranks (Class V and above within the system
of civil ranking, and the rank of colonel and above on the military scale), while
“ordinary” gifts could be received by people of any status and position.32 These
latter objects, such as rings with precious stones, bracelets, brooches, earrings,
pins, etc., did not bear any signs or symbols identifying them as having been
provided by the monarch. Most often these were acquired from the existing
stock held by jewellers who were credited as suppliers to His Majesty’s court.33
Until 1884 no “ordinary” gifts were decorated with imperial emblems, except
30 A. V. Iuferov, “Istoriia koronnykh brilliantov,” in Almaznyi fond SSSR, ed. Aleksandr E.

Fersman, 4 vols (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Narodnogo komissariata finansov SSSR, 1924–25),
2: 23; Leonid V. Vyskochkov, Budni i prazdniki imperatorskogo dvora (St Petersburg: Piter,
2012), 31.
31 On January 1, 1864 a policy was issued regarding the possibility of returning the gifts to the
Cabinet (following certain designated terms and conditions): “to purchase things back
(up to the value of ten thousand roubles) for the period of one month;” and, when issuing
gifts, to ask whether the recipient would like to be granted a gift or its monetary value,
“which reduces the cost of re-purchasing and re-making parts of old things” (Iuferov,
“Istoriia koronnykh brilliantov,” 23).
32 A formal list of positions and ranks in the military, government, and court of Imperial
Russia was introduced by Peter the Great in 1722. A detailed study of the system of
Imperial gifts is presented in Ulla Tillander-Godenhielm, The Russian Imperial Award
System during the reign of Nicolas II, 1894–1917 (Helsinki: Suomen Muinaismuistoyhdistys,
2005); see also Zimin, Tsarskie den’gi, 160–74.
33 Frants Birbaum, “Istoriia firmy Faberzhe. Kamnereznoe delo i iuvelirnoe i zoloto-serebri-
anoe proizvodstvo firmy Faberzhe. Vospominaniia glavnogo mastera firmy F. P. Birbauma,
1919,” in Faberzhe i peterburgskie iuveliry. Sbornik memuarov, statei, arkhivnykh dokumen-
tov po istorii russkogo iuvelirnogo iskusstva, ed. Valentin Skurlov (St Petersburg: Liki Rossii,
2012), 42.
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172 Olga Sobolev
for watches, which were in high demand because of the distinctive imperial
mark.34
Diplomatic gifts for other sovereigns and distinguished representatives of
foreign countries were exempt from these regimented procedural categori-
sations. Among those offerings were some exquisite items commissioned on
a “one-off” basis, such as a crystal bed for the Persian Shah, designed by the
jeweller Wilhelm Keibel and produced at the Imperial Factory in 1824–26.35
Towards the second half of the nineteenth century, however, the Chamber
Office stopped going further than acquiring ready-made gift objects from
designated jewellery workshops, including Fabergé, Bolin, Köhli, Zeftigen,
Grachev brothers, Ovchinnikov, Morozov, and others. According to the testi-
mony of Franz Birbaum, one of the leading craftsmen of the Fabergé firm, a
variety of things were sent to the palace so that the members of the imperial
family could make choices to their liking.36 At times this turned into a drawn-
out procedure, as it required some nuanced consideration of the current politi-
cal context, the shifting winds of European diplomacy, and the ranking of the
recipient. Thus, the gifts presented to the Persian Shah during his visit in 1889
prompted heated deliberations, positively distracting high society’s chatter
from the failing politics in the Balkans and the growing German-Russian ani-
mosity instigated by Bismarck. It was widely held that the gift intended for
the Shah—a portrait of the emperor, sprinkled with diamonds—represented
a poor choice, all things considered, suffering from a lack of imagination, qual-
ity, and personal touch:
Initially, the idea was to present the Shah with a vase of some 50 thousand rou-
bles, but he had already received so many of them in the past, that his courtiers
simply laughed at the sight of these vases. Then they switched to a cane of some
15 thousand, but his Master of Ceremonies’ cane turned out to be three times
more expensive. Both sides, thus, parted on a note of profound dissatisfaction.37
34 According to Birbaum, a master of the Fabergé firm, the designs of these “articles were
rather monotonous, since the central motifs were always the double-headed eagle
or the Imperial crown” (Birbaum, “Istoriia firmy Faberzhe,” 42). See Valentin Skurlov,
“Imperatorskie i kabinetskie podarki,” Arkhiv Valentina Skurlova, http://skurlov.blogspot.
com/2017/04/blog-post_6.html, accessed June 1, 2020; Igor’ Poltorak, “Vysochaishie
podarki,” Antikvarnoe obozrenie 3 (2002): 32–33.
35 Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv [Russian State Historical Archives, St
Petersburg] (hereafter, “RGIA”), f. 468, op. 10, d. 71, l. 1 (“O prigotovlenii dlia shakha persid-
skogo khrustal’noi krovati, 1822.”), quoted in Zimin, Tsarskie den’gi, 161–62.
36 Birbaum, “Istoriia firmy Faberzhe,” 42.
37 Aleksandra Bogdanovich, Tri poslednikh samoderzhtsa. Dnevnik (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo
L. D. Frenkel, 1924), 115.
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During the preparations for foreign voyages conducted by Russian monarchs,

the Chamber Office would receive long lists of jewellery and gifts to be stocked
for the journey.38 These offerings—countless trifles such as snuff boxes, pins,
watches, and rings with precious stones—were intended for foreigners who,
in one way or another, happened to distinguish themselves during the trip.
Unsurprisingly, these valuables were perceived as tiny little tokens of dip-
lomatic relations and were tailored with great care to incorporate cultural
hallmarks associated with the recipients. For instance, one can refer to the
gifts stocked for the imperial trips to Denmark conducted by the family of
Alexander III due to their strong dynastic connection. These voyages made
a noticeable impact on the customised production of the Fabergé workshops
at the time: figurines of elephants with towers, evoking the iconography of
the Order of the White Elephant—the highest state award in the Kingdom
of Denmark—were in great demand. Such elephants were crafted from gem-
stones, including jade, malachite, jasper, and quartz, and embellished with a
golden tower with enamel encrustation.39
By the second half of the nineteenth century, these courtly gifts were
mostly of formal or ceremonial, as opposed to practical, importance. And,
in this sense, the general dynamics of material diplomacy which prevailed at
the Russian court differed little from those elsewhere in the world. Following
overall economic growth and a gradual increase in standards of living, more
emphasis was placed on the emblematic value of the objects, thus facilitating
a shift from social to ceremonial gifts.40 An interesting example of this courtly
language of diplomacy can be seen in the evolving significance attached to
snuff boxes that were circulated as gifts from the time of Peter the Great.
Although of no practical utility, the most prestigious snuff boxes were those
decorated with a monogram or a portrait of the monarch, to the extent that
38 These lists were meticulously recorded in the books of the Chamber Office (for more
details see Zimin, Tsarskie den’gi, 179–84); for instance, the stock of gifts for the impe-
rial trip to Copenhagen in 1883 (when Tennyson encountered Alexander III) amounted
to 1772 roubles (RGIA f. 468, op. 7, d. 104, “O pozhalovanii podarkov vo vremia voiazha
Gosudaria Imperatora v Kopengagen.”). To give an idea of the sum, the average price of
a gift watch at the time was fifty to one hundred and fifty roubles (RGIA f. 468, op. 7,
d. 81, 89).
39 RGIA f. 468, op. 8, d. 75, l. 7, “O raskhodakh dragotsennykh veshchei na podarki vo vre-
mia Vysochaishego puteshestviia Ikh Imperatorskikh Velichestv v Kopengagen”; see also
Skurlov, “Imperatorskie i kabinetskie podarki.”
40 Georgii S. Knabe, “Veshch’ kak fenomen kul’tury,” in Muzeevedenie: Muzei mira, ed.
E. E. Kuz’mina (Moscow: NII Kul’tury, 1991), 111; Michael Talbot, “Gifts of Time: Watches
and Clocks in Ottoman-British Diplomacy, 1693–1803,” in Rudolph and Metzig, Material
Culture in Modern Diplomacy, 55.
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174 Olga Sobolev
gradually they started to be valued on a par with the insignia of the most pres-
tigious Imperial Orders.41
As for the gift bestowed on the British Poet Laureate, it should be stressed
that offerings to foreign citizens were not easy to categorise in accordance
with the strict and rigid internal system of gift-ranking. Moreover, Tennyson’s
case was even less straightforward in this regard, complicated by at least two
factors. The first concerns a coincidental hierarchical change in the recipi-
ent’s social position. The timing of Tennyson’s elevation to the British peerage
coincided with, but strictly speaking did not precede, the honour of the impe-
rial gift. Tennyson had declined a baronetcy in 1865 and 1868 when this was
tendered by Disraeli (a Conservative). He finally accepted the peerage in 1883
at Gladstone’s (a Liberal) earnest solicitation, and it was during their cruise on
board the Pembroke Castle that the prime minister secured the poet’s infor-
mal agreement. General gossip might have brought this to the attention of
Alexander III during the royal lunchtime visit to the boat.
However, it was only later, in September 1883, upon his return from the cruise,
that Tennyson formally accepted the title in a private letter to the queen. “I
have learned from Mr Gladstone,” he wrote: “your Majesty’s gracious intention
toward myself, and I ask to be allowed to express to your Majesty herself my
grateful acknowledgments.”42 The official announcement came four days later
on January 11, 1884, and he took his seat in the House of Lords on March 11 that
year.43 By this time, he had already taken possession of his Siberian wolfhound;
a sketch of Tennyson in his study with Karenina was published by The Graphic
on March 22, 1884 (fig. 7.2). It is therefore not unlikely that the imperial gift
was, in fact, presented to a commoner (albeit with the significant status of the
Poet Laureate) rather than to “Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Freshwater.”
The other complicating consideration is the fact that the formal exchange
of animals occupied a very special niche in the protocol of courtly gift-giving.
Firstly, these “living gifts” were difficult to place within the rigid hierarchy of
material culture: they were relatively short-lived and could not be passed down
through generations as a family relic. Secondly, they were often of practical—as
41 For instance, prestigious snuff boxes were awarded in lieu of an Imperial Order to
Prince de Ligne of Belgium and Lord Granville, British Ambassadors Extraordinary, who
attended the coronation ceremony of Alexander II in 1856. It was a personal preference
for the former, while the latter was not in the position of accepting foreign State Orders
in accordance with English law. See Grigorii Miloradovich, “Diary, August 1956,” Russkii
arkhiv, 3 (1884): 185–210 (199).
42 Letter from Alfred Tennyson to Queen Victoria, September 1883, reproduced in Hallam
Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson, 2: 436.
43 The London Gazette 25308 (January 15, 1884): 243.
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in the case of hunting dogs or falcons—rather than of ceremonial appeal. It is

therefore worth looking into this phenomenon in greater detail to contextual-
ise the emperor’s gesture and to add further insight into the gift bestowed on
the poet.
Courtly Exchange of “Living Gifts” and the Vogue for Borzois
The courtly exchange of animals between Russia and Britain dates back to the
sixteenth century, when Tsar Ivan IV sent a gift of furs and “living souvenirs”
to Queen Elizabeth I. Alongside the conventional royal letters, the English
ambassador brought back from Russia gyrfalcons and a stock of greyhound
puppies, which were highly valued at the Elizabethan court. On his return
from the third English embassy to Muscovy, Jerome Horsey left the following
description of his audience with the queen:
The Quen did eaven sweat by takinge paines to handell the canapie cloth of gold,
especially the rich sabells and furs; comanded Mrs. Skidmor and Mrs. Hatcliff,
both of her Majestys bead-chamber, and Mr. John Stanhope, to help them to laye
these things into her Majestys closett. Two white garrfaulkens, a last of girckens
and a last of sloght faulcons and two gashaukes, she loked upon owt of the win-
dowes; comanded my lord of Comberland and Sir Henry Lee to take charge and
give good acount of them. Her Majesty held up her hand and saied, this was a
rare and a royall present indeed: gave me thanckes and dismist me.44
In the same vein, a pair of great pink pelicans was presented to King Charles
II—a gift from the Russian ambassador, Prince Prozorovskii. Never seen in
England before, the birds walked freely in St James’s Park, and were described
by John Evelyn as “a fowl between a stork and a swan; a melancholy waterfowl,
brought from Astrakhan by the Russian Ambassador.”45
Apart from these rare exotic creatures traditionally favoured by monarchs,
the types of animals considered appropriate for courtly exchange depended
largely on the hunting habits of the rulers. Thus, for instance, knowing that
Peter II (grandson of Peter the Great) had a strong passion for hunting with
dogs, the Spanish ambassador to the Russian court, the Duke of Liria, pre-
sented him with a pair of English greyhounds, noting in his diary:
44 Jerome Horsey, “A Relacion or Memoriall abstract owt of Sir Jerome Horsey his Travells,
Imploiments, Services and Negotiations, observed and written with his owne hand,” in
Russia at the Close of the Sixteenth Century, ed. Edward Augustus Bond (London: Hakluyt
Society, 1856), 233–34.
45 John Evelyn, The Diary of John Evelyn, 2 vols (New York: M. Walter Dunne), 2: 2.
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176 Olga Sobolev
On October 25 [1728], I presented the tsar with a pair of greyhound dogs, which
I deliberately ordered from England, and his majesty was so pleased as if I had
given him the greatest treasure. That evening he went again to the suburbs, say-
ing that he would not return before the first snow fell.46
Peter’s pursuits, however, were largely an exception among eighteenth-century

Russian monarchs, for it was the gyrfalcon hunt that at that time had become
firmly associated with the imperial court. By sending birds of prey to other
nations the tsars settled such complex matters as peace treaties, financial set-
tlements, and loan negotiations. Falconry was one of the preferred pastimes
of Catherine the Great, who is said to have engaged in these activities twice
a week.47 Later, hunting with birds of prey was superseded by gun-hunting,
deemed more masculine, and hunting with dogs, favoured by Alexander II and
his son Alexander III. The last major event featuring falcons took place at the
coronation festivities of Alexander II.48
Knowing that Alexander II was both an enthusiastic dog-lover and a hunter,
foreign dignitaries and faithful subjects presented him with innumerable chas-
ing hounds and pets. Examples are manifold and include Milord—a black
setter given to him by an obscure Polish szlachcic and inseparable from the
emperor since his time as heir. Milord’s puppies were in great demand, and one
of them was successfully acquired and raised by Count Leo Tolstoy.49 During
Alexander II’s coronation festivities in 1856, Colonel Afrosimov presented the
emperor with a pair of greyhounds imported from England, local landlords
kept sending him borzois from their kennels, and the Spanish ambassador, the
Duke of Osuna, offered an unheard of (in Russia) breed of chasing hounds,
delivered from Spain in 1857 and again in 1862. In 1867, the Prince of Wales sent
Alexander an English setter, which turned out to be so boisterous and untamed
that it had to undergo some extensive training with a huntsman to enable it to
“behave itself appropriately at the Winter Palace.”50 Since hunting was a major
46 Zapiski Diuka Liriiskogo i Berkvikskogo vo vremia prebyvaniia ego pri imperatorskom ros-
siiskom dvore v zvanii posla korolia ispanskogo (St Petersburg: Guttenbergovaia tipografiia,
1845), 42.
47 Ol’ga Mel’nikova, “Zabavliaitesia, uteshaitesia seiu dobroiu potekhoiu,” in Pridvornaia
okhota, ed. Irina Paltusova (Moscow: Khudozhnik i kniga, 2002), 117.
48 Irina Paltusova, “Pridvornaia okhota,” in Pridvornaia okhota, ed. Irina Paltusova (Moscow:
Khudozhnik i kniga, 2002), 15, exhibition catalogue.
49 Leonid P. Sabaneev, Sobaki okhotnichii (Moscow: Terra, 1992), 139; Sergei Deviatov and
Igor’ Zimin, Dvor Rossiiskikh Imperatorov, 2 vols (Moscow: Kuchkovo pole, 2014), 2: 409.
50 “Ob uplate egeriu Petru Vasilievu deneg za nakhozhdenie u nego na kormu dlia dressirovki
sobaki iz porody setter, prinadlezhashchei gosudariu imperatoru, 1867–1869,” RGIA,
f. 478, op. 3, d. 2007, quoted in Deviatov and Zimin, Dvor Rossiiskikh Imperatorov, 2: 407.
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part of everyday life in royal circles, Alexander II’s reciprocal offerings of dogs
were also willingly received. He responded to Prince Karl of Prussia by sending
him several packs of Russian hounds (delivered in 1851, 1855, and 1868); and in
1867 the Prince of Wales received a set of three beautiful borzois.51
The practice of British-Russian courtly dog-exchange was carried on suc-
cessfully for many years. It ended only with the fall of the Romanov dynasty,
and on a very moving, not to say poignant note. In 1914 the ten-year old
Tsarevich Alexei, son of Emperor Nicholas II, was presented with an English
spaniel called Joy.52 The entire family was very fond of the dog, which accom-
panied them into exile in Tobolsk and later in Ekaterinburg in 1917–18. After
the execution of the imperial family in the summer of 1918, Joy somehow sur-
vived. Picked up by the White officer Pavel Rodzianko, the dog was brought to
England and delivered to Buckingham Palace, where it stayed until the end of
its life, looked after by King George V and his court.53
Alexander III inherited his father’s keenness for dogs as well as for hunt-
ing and it was at that time that Russia established its diplomatic “currency” of
borzois. Among the favourite destinations of the emperor’s hunting expedi-
tions was Pershino, a country manor some twenty miles from the city of Tula,
which belonged to Grand Duke Nicholas, grandson of Nicholas I. An enthusi-
astic connoisseur of all types of hunting hounds, the grand duke had a special
passion for borzois, shared by his close companion Prince Dmitrii Galitzine,
who in 1889 was appointed as Master of the Imperial Hunt. Under Galitzine,
Pershino was transformed into an internationally famous hunting estate and a
high-quality breeding kennel, favoured by top-level foreign visitors, who were
often invited there for reasons going far beyond those of pure entertainment.
A revealing example of this kind of diplomacy (strengthening inter-dynastic
links and securing personal favours) can be drawn from one of Grand Duke
Vladimir’s letters instructing those in charge to ensure that his visitor, the Duke
of Edinburgh, did not miss the target while out hunting on the estate:
I suggested to the Duke of Edinburgh to go hunting on Tuesday night, after the

ball […] I would be very pleased if it were my beau-frère who happens to kill
both bears on this occasion. I hope there is still enough time for the necessary
arrangement to be made.54
51 Deviatov and Zimin, Dvor Rossiiskikh Imperatorov, 2: 407.

52 A set of photographs in which Alexei was captured with this pet was widely available in
contemporary newspapers and journals.
53 David Genkin, “Priiutil sobaku vmesto brata,” Komsomol’skaia pravda (May 18, 2018);
Deviatov and Zimin, Dvor Rossiiskikh Imperatorov, 2: 421.
54 Irina Paltusova, “Mir okhotnichikh uvlechenii imperatorskogo doma,” in Paltusova,
Pridvornaia okhota, 305.
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178 Olga Sobolev
Figure 7.4 Vassilka, 1907, silver, aventurine quartz, Fabergé workshops, Royal Collection
Trust, London.
As a notable instance of putting the material culture of diplomacy into prac-

tice, Pershino established itself as a multi-functional and a multi-layered
arrangement, where, to use the phrase coined by Harriet Rudolph, the whole
complex of artefacts and space was “supposed to be constitutive for creating
an intended effect.”55 It furnished a unique experience for the guests of the
emperor’s hunting parties (including a brass band which performed a special
ritual at the end of the hunt) and its well-maintained borzoi kennels made
an appreciable contribution to the stock of exceedingly sought after imperial
gifts.56 It is very likely that Tennyson’s Karenina also came from these kennels,
for in the words of George Galitzine, a descendant of the family, “some of the
best borzois in England now can trace their ancestry to sires and dams bred
[…] from Pershino stock.”57
55 Rudolph, “Entangled Objects,” 13.

56 George Galitzine, “Charm of the Borzois,” Country Life (November 16, 1989): 106.
57 Ibid.
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In the 1880s Russian wolfhounds or borzois were extremely rare in Britain,

associated exclusively with the royal family and high society circles. As an
appreciative dog lover, Alexander III could not have been uninformed of the
situation, and in this sense, his gift of a borzoi hound to the Poet Laureate rep-
resented a truly grand gesture on behalf of the emperor. In 1842 Queen Victoria
was presented with a pair of borzois by Nicholas I, and is said to have become
very fond of her “present.”58 Some years later the Prince of Wales, the future
King Edward VII, also received a pair of borzois—Molodetz and Oudalzka,
who were reported to have been exhibited to the public in London (the name
of the latter was mis-transcribed; the dog features as Odaliska [Odalisque]
in the Russian records).59 Edward VII was an avid hunter and took over the
breed of the queen’s borzois at Sandringham kennels. One of his favourites
was Vassilka, a British-born (1902) descendant of Korotai, imported from the
Pershino kennels.60 The dog achieved Champion status at various shows, and
in 1907 a silver model of Vassilka was commissioned by the king from Fabergé
(fig. 7.4).61
The royal family’s interest in borzois was also perpetuated by the Princess
of Wales.62 She both bred and exhibited the hounds and often had them at her
side. One, a gift from Alexander III called Alex (Aiaks in the Russian records),
became particularly well known, having been depicted in a famous photo-
graph by Thomas Fall (c. 1890; fig. 7.5).63 This association of borzois with the
royal family extended over a period of more than fifty years. As leaders of fash-
ion, they soon made this breed a hallmark of social exclusivity, much desired
among the higher echelons of the upper class. To name but a few examples:
the Duchess of Manchester enjoyed public attention in 1863 by exhibiting
Katae, her gift from the emperor, at the Birmingham Dog Show;64 Colonel and
Mrs Wellesley were presented with Krillutt while they were attached to the
58 Winifred Chadwick, The Borzoi Handbook (London: Nicholson and Watson, 1952), 31.
59 Igor’ B. Solov’ev, “Pervye shagi k mirovoi slave,” Priroda i okhota 1 (1992): 46–48 (46).
60 Ibid., 46; “Vassilka,” The Borzoi Encyclopaedia, https://www.borzoipedia.com/dogs/3973,
accessed June 1, 2020.
61 S. P. Borman, “Borzois,” in The Kennel Encyclopaedia, ed. John S. Turner, 4 vols (London:
Sir W. C. Leng & Co., 1907), 1: 278; Russia: Art, Royalty and the Romanovs, ed. Caroline de
Guitaut and Stephen Patterson (London: Royal Collection Trust, 2018), 422, exhibition
catalogue.
62 Chadwick, The Borzoi Handbook, 32.
63 Solov’ev, “Pervye shagi k mirovoi slave,” 46.
64 Nellie Martin, Borzoi—The Russian Wolfhound (Chicago: Judy Publishing Company, 1931),
38; Herbert Compton, The Twentieth Century Dog, 2 vols (London: Grant Richards, 1904),
2: 77.
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180 Olga Sobolev
Figure 7.5 Alexandra, Princess of Wales, and her borzoi Alex, c. 1890, photograph by Thomas
Fall, Royal Collection Trust, London.
British Embassy in Russia, and exhibited the hound in London in 1888.65 It is

also worth mentioning the Duchess of Newcastle, who from the early 1860s
was known as one of the earliest champions of the breed. She founded her
own kennels in 1891, when Nicholas II and his uncle Grand Duke Nicholas sent
twenty borzois to Crufts and auctioned them off after the show.66 Their sale
prices ensured that only the wealthiest could afford them (e.g., the Duchess of
Newcastle paid £1000 to acquire her first borzoi in 1863).67
The start of the vogue for borzois in Britain is attributed to the early 1890s,
largely promoted by the Princess of Wales, and it was during these years that
the British Borzoi Club was founded in London in May 1892. But even then,
when these dogs became relatively common, they still invested the owner with
a certain distinguished air. In the mid-1880s, however, when Tennyson was
honoured with his hound, borzois remained scarcely to be found in Britain.
They could only be imported from Russian kennels, bought at vast price from
65 Martin, Borzoi, 18, 38; Compton, The Twentieth Century Dog, 2: 77.
66 Compton, The Twentieth Century Dog, 2: 76.
67 Solov’ev, “Pervye shagi k mirovoi slave,” 46.
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the international dog-shows, or, as in the case of the Poet Laureate, be received
as an imperial gift.
Tennyson’s Karenina and the Riddle of the Name
The borzoi owned by Tennyson was strikingly handsome and majestic—

“a fawn dog with white marks melding in around the foreface and legs.”68
Karenina was still a family member in 1899, as depicted in a painting by Briton
Rivière that shows Audrey, Lady Tennyson (the wife of Tennyson’s son Hallam)
with Karenina lying at her side (fig. 7.6).69 The gift was very close to Tennyson’s
heart. He was known to be exceedingly fond of large dogs; as Wilfrid Ward (a
noted biographer and one of the poet’s close friends) recollected:
From about 1882 onwards I frequently went out with [Tennyson] tête-à-tête
[…] First there was the unloosening of the dogs who were to go with us. Don
and Duke in earlier days, and later the beautiful stag-hound Lufra or the grace-
ful Karenina, are an inseparable part of the picture of those walks that live in
memory.70
Arthur Coleridge renders much the same idyllic picture of the poet surrounded
by his pets at Freshwater: “a wolf-hound or a deer-hound, Karénina or Lufra,
were matters of daily occurrence in my Freshwater days.”71 But it was Karenina
who was invariably singled out as “the constant companion of her master,” and,
in the words of Charles Tennyson, grandson of the poet, it was this dog who
made the strongest impression in the memories of the family members: “He
always liked to have great big dogs with him. The one I remember particularly
is, I think, commemorated in the famous Watts statue in Lincoln—a Siberian
wolf-hound which we called Karenina.”72
68 Revd. Bill King, “Finding the Unusual,” Kennel Gazette (June 2018): 15.
69 Among other images of Karenina there is an undated chalk drawing in Tennyson in
Lincoln, 2: entry 6056; and a photograph from the album of Lionel Tennyson in Andrew
Wheatcroft, The Tennyson Album (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), 148.
70 Ward, “Tennyson: A Reminiscence,” 99.
71 Coleridge, “Fragmentary Notes of Tennyson’s Talk,” 256.
72 V. C. Scott O’Connor, “Tennyson and His Friends at Freshwater,” 256; Charles Tennyson,
“Memoirs of My Grandfather,” 166; see also Peter Levi, Tennyson (London: Macmillan,
1993), 49.
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182 Olga Sobolev
Figure 7.6 Briton Rivière, Portrait of Audrey, Lady Tennyson with the wolfhound Karenina,
1899, oil on canvas, 150 × 122.4 cm, National Library of Australia.
PUBLIC DOMAIN / NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA
The wolfhound’s name—Karenina—and its reference to the celebrated Tolstoy

novel was picked up by several of Tennyson’s biographers, but rarely explained.
Peter Levi, for instance, claims that Karenina was “the only evidence that he
[Tennyson] ever read Tolstoy.”73 This, arguably, turns out to be an over-hasty
73 Levi, Tennyson, 49.
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conclusion. At the time when Tennyson acquired Karenina the novel was not
available in any foreign language translations. The first French edition came
out in 1885 (Anna Karénine, Comte Léon Tolstoï, roman traduit du russe, Paris:
Hachette). An English version followed, translated by Nathan Haskell Dole,
and published in New York in 1887 (Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.), and in London
in 1889 (Walter Scott Publishing Company Ltd). Of all the European editions,
Tennyson would have been most at ease with the German translation, as he had
studied the language as a student at Cambridge. This, however, appeared even
later, in 1900 (Druck und Verlag von Philipp Reclam jun.). Hallam Tennyson
points out that his father read (or had read to him) Matthew Arnold’s study of
Anna Karenina, but this reference hardly sheds any light on the origin of the
dog’s name.74 Published in December 1887, Arnold’s article came some three
years after the dog.
Despite his pronounced antipathy for Russian politics, Tennyson was not
uninterested in certain aspects of Russian culture. He formed a personal
acquaintance with Ivan Turgenev, who arrived in London for a winter’s stay in
November 1870. Seven months later, William Ralston Shedden-Ralston, a liter-
ary critic, brought the Russian novelist to spend a couple of days in Tennyson’s
new house at Blackdown, in Surrey. “A most interesting man,” wrote Emily
Tennyson in her diary, “who told us stories of Russian life with a great graphic
power and vivacity.”75 Emily also testified that at that time her husband had
displayed a genuine interest in the subject: he read about the old Russian “stat-
ues on the Steppes from China to the Crimea,” and was enthralled by what she
described as “the strange sects among the Russians, and the character of the
Russian peasant and the strong feeling of unity in the nation.”76 Given that
the first instalment of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina was released by The Russian
Messenger only in 1873 (the novel was serialised from 1873 to 1877, and then
published in book form in 1878), the reference to Tolstoy’s novel could not pos-
sibly have been prompted by Turgenev during his brief acquaintance with the
Poet Laureate in the summer of 1871.
Tennyson’s long-term friendship with Mr Ralston (as he was known to
the poet) on the other hand, could be of significance in establishing the
74 Hallam Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson, 2: 348–49. Arnold’s essay “Count Leo Tolstoi” con-
tained a considerable section on Anna Karenina, naming it “the novel best representing
Count Tolstoi.” See Matthew Arnold, “Count Leo Tolstoi,” Fortnightly Review 42, no. 252
(December 1887): 783–99 (785).
75 Emily, Lady Tennyson, Lady Tennyson’s Journal, ed. James O. Hoge (Charlottesville:
University of Virginia Press, 1981), 324–25; Hallam Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson, 2:
106–07.
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184 Olga Sobolev
connection.77 A prominent Russian scholar and translator, Ralston regularly

sent signed copies of his Russian essays to the Tennysons.78 In his pioneer-
ing article “Count Leo Tolstoy’s Novels,” published in 1879 by The Nineteenth
Century, Ralston had a small passage on the recently released Anna Karenina,
where he positioned it as a piece of prose which made more money for its
author than “any other Russian work ever produced.”79 He also claimed that
Tolstoy’s major novels were unlikely to be translated into English. “Among
other deterrent causes,” Ralston mentioned the length of the novels, as well as
the narrative specificity of Tolstoy’s writing, which English readers, in his view,
“are scarcely fitted to appreciate aright.”80
One can only speculate whether Tennyson was at all familiar with the
plotline of the novel. This, in fact, is not unlikely, because Ralston had made
quite a name for himself by delivering retellings of major literary works to
large audiences in London. Having made several successful performances
at St James’s and St George’s Hall for the Sunday Lecture Society, he was then
invited to present these storytelling sessions to the young princes and prin-
cesses at Marlborough House.81 It is therefore most probable that Ralston,
being so keen on narrating fiction, did mention the content of Anna Karenina
in his regular conversations with the poet. By the same token, one can assume
Tennyson’s impression of the novel was drawn entirely from Ralston’s personal
interpretations, firmly rooted, as claimed in his paper, in the untranslatable
Russianness of Tolstoy’s work. This representation of the novel, to a certain
extent selective, could not but inform the poet’s reading of the title, which,
at least within the framework of Tennyson’s thinking, may have evoked a
77 This is what the critic was called among Tennyson’s family members (Hallam Tennyson,
Alfred Lord Tennyson, 2: 106, 328).
78 Waddington, Tennyson and Russia, 29; William Ralston Shedden-Ralston (1828–89) was
an associate member of the Russian Academy of Science (1853–75); his translations from
Russian included: Krilof and his Fables (London: Strahan & Co., 1868/69); The Songs of
the Russian People as Illustrative of Slavonic Mythology and Russian Social Life (London:
Ellis and Green, 1872); Russian Folk Tales (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1873); Early Russian
History: Four Lectures Delivered at Oxford, in the Taylor Institution (London: Sampson Low,
Marston, Low & Searle, 1874).
79 W.R.S. [William Ralston Shedden], “Count Leo Tolstoy’s Novels,” The Nineteenth
Century 5, no. 26 (April 1879): 650–69 (652). In his article Ralston pointed out that in Anna
Karenina Tolstoy “has taken as his subject society as it exists at the present day in Russian
aristocratic circles, combining with his graphic descriptions of the life now led by the
upper classes, a series of subtle studies of an erring woman’s heart” (W.R.S., “Count Leo
Tolstoy’s Novels,” 651).
80 Ibid., 651.
81 Robert Kennaway Douglas, “Ralston, William Ralston Shedden,” Dictionary of National
Biography, ed. Sidney Lee (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1885–1900), 47: 224–25 (225).
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mysterious sense of Russian authenticity, infinitely alluring and impenetrable

in foreign eyes.
Although Tennyson had read and was very fond of Turgenev’s novels (Lisa,
which was the first English version (1869) of A House of Gentlefolk, and Fathers
and Sons), the names drawn from these early (and largely westernised) transla-
tions perhaps did not conjure the same aura of echt-Russianness in the poet’s
imagination.82 This, to give credit to Tennyson’s keen sense of style, largely
coincided with the viewpoint of contemporary critics (including Ralston). It
was generally held that Tolstoy’s writings were “crudely joined,” the events and
settings were “tolerably life-like,” but “how wild, how primitive and lawless,”
though not “wholly unpleasant or unclean.”83 Compared to Turgenev, Tolstoy
was seen as displaying more “original force,” but was not so subtle an artist. He
was seen as possessing “fiercer and freer poetry” than Turgenev, but less of the
“contemptuous ennui and arid sophistication.”84
History would prove wrong Ralston’s comment on the poor prospects of
English editions of Tolstoy’s major novels, as the mid-1880s saw a whole new
wave of translations from Tolstoy. Curiously, this tide of interest was not entirely
unrelated to increasing Anglo-Russian political tensions, and more specifically
to Russia’s expansion south-east towards India and Afghanistan. In July 1887
the Boundary Commission was still negotiating frontiers and the chances were
higher for the Panjdeh incident (1885) to develop into a serious threat of mil-
itary confrontation. Consequently, much more public attention was paid to
the study of the menacing foe. Written and published within a week, Charles
Marvin’s The Russians at the Gate of Herat (1885) sold sixty-five thousand cop-
ies. Smith, Elder, & Co. (London) reprinted Armin Vámbéry’s Central Asia and
the Anglo-Russian Frontier Question (1874), as well as his Travels in Central
Asia (1864). Other new titles included All the Russians (1885) by E. C. Phillips,
History of Russia (1885) by W. K. Kelly, and The Russian Storm-cloud or Russia
in Her Relations to Neighbouring Countries (1886) by Sergei Kravchinskii, a
leader of the Russian Anarchist movement who was widely known as “Sergius
Stepniak.”85

83 “Colonel Dunwoodie, and Other Novels,” Atlantic Monthly 42 (1878): 697–706 (702).
84 Ibid.
85 On the rise of interest in Russia at the time, see: Olga Soboleva and Angus Wrenn, From
Orientalism to Cultural Capital (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2017, https://doi.org/10.3726/b11211),
16–17; Anthony Cross, In the Lands of the Romanovs: An Annotated Bibliography of
First-hand English-language Accounts of the Russian Empire (1613–1917) (Cambridge: Open
Book Publishers, 2014), https://www.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/OBP.0042.pdf.
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186 Olga Sobolev
A rapid and appreciable interest in Russian culture spread across British

society and, although it embraced Russian literature as a whole, the works of
Tolstoy, with their sense of authentic crudeness and wild power (so apt for the
portrait of an enemy at a time of potential war), were brought to the fore as a
major point of public attraction. Until 1885 Tolstoy’s name was barely known
to British readers (more familiar with the writings of Turgenev) to the extent
that The Contemporary Review could refer freely to Dmitrii Tolstoi, the Russian
Minister of Home Affairs, simply as “Count Tolstoy,” without any thought that
his identity might be confused.86 By 1887 Leo Tolstoy’s books were everywhere
in British bookstores, and by the mid-1880s practically everything Tolstoy had
written in the preceding thirty-five years, including War and Peace and Anna
Karenina, had been translated and published in English.87
Returning to Tennyson’s Karenina, her literary name, and her role as a
bearer of some specific cultural connotations, one can certainly see this case
as an early harbinger or even an early stimulus of this subsequent tide of
British interest in Tolstoy. To use the terminology of diplomatic material cul-
ture, the agency of this gift was inadvertently enhanced by the name chosen
by the recipient.88 As a prominent feature of the Poet Laureate’s circle (wit-
nessed, for instance, by William Gardner’s sketches of Tennyson’s entourage
86 “Contemporary Life and Thought in Russia,” The Contemporary Review 47 (1885): 727–36.
At the end of the 1870s there appeared a few publications that tried to attract attention
to Tolstoy’s writings, but they were very sparse: see for instance, William E. Henley, “New
Novels,” The Academy 329 (1878): 186–87; Charles E. Turner, Studies in Russian Literature
(London: Kessinger Publishing Company, 1882).
87 Six translations of Tolstoy’s works were published between 1885 and 1888, not to mention
nineteen American editions which were on sale in Britain. The influx of these translations
was partly facilitated by the availability of the general body of his works unprotected by
intellectual copyright. In 1884 Tolstoy assigned the rights to all his works published before
1881 to his wife, being very generous with the remaining part of his intellectual property,
and in 1891 he publicly renounced the copyrights of all he had written after 1881. Free of
copyright restriction and royalties, publishing houses around the world issued impressive
runs of Tolstoy’s works almost immediately upon their official publication in Russia.
88 The notion of a “thing’s agency” was developed by Ileana Baird from the sociologic stud-
ies of Arthur Gell and Bruno Latour. See: Ileana Baird, “Introduction: Peregrine things:
Rethinking the global in eighteenth-century studies,” in Eighteenth-Century Thing Theory
in a Global Context: From Consumerism to Celebrity Culture, ed. Ileana Baird and Christina
Ionescu (Farnham: Routledge, 2013), 1; Arthur Gell, Art and Agency: An Anthropological
Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 12–27; and Bruno Latour, Reassembling the
Social: An Introduction to Actor–Network–Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005),
63–86.
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Figure 7.7 Tennyson’s Study at Farringford, by W. Biscombe Gardner, reproduced in

The English Illustrated Magazine 10 (1892), 149.
at Farringford and Aldworth (fig. 7.7)), the dog invariably drew attention to
and evoked curiosity concerning the origin of her unusual name, thus induc-
ing (though tacitly) an increasing degree of awareness and consideration of
Tolstoy’s work.89 In this sense, the gift did make a contribution to the cause of
cultural diplomacy—a cause which was so close to the heart of Karenina’s mas-
ter, who, according to Hallam Tennyson, was in total agreement with Tolstoy’s
views on the social importance of fiction. Both were convinced that it was the
men of letters, rather than the diplomats, who should enable and uphold the
rapprochement between peoples and nations.90
89 Grant Allen, “Tennyson’s Homes at Aldworth and Farringford,” with illustrations by

William Biscombe Gardner, English Illustrated Magazine 10 (1892): 147–56.
90 Hallam Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson, 2: 348–49.
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188 Olga Sobolev
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192 Olga Sobolev
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Chapter 8
Fabergé Hardstone in Imperial Gifting from Russia

to England
During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the House of Fabergé was
in its ascendency, with an elite and international clientele clamouring for the
flawless craftsmanship and novel designs that underpinned its reputation.
At the height of its fame, luxury gifts ordered from the firm by the Russian
imperial family to mark state events and royal alliances carried enormous
prestige. As showcases for the refined taste of the patron and the esteem
in which the recipient was held, these objets d’art took on the role of status
symbols. They indicated how Russia wished to be viewed by foreigners, while
also serving as a platform for the Empire’s finest materials and most accom-
plished makers.
As a category of courtly gift-giving, lapidary art—such as that made by
Fabergé—offers vast scope for research into Russia’s abundant mineral wealth,
the geological expanse of the Russian Empire, and the technological advances
that transformed minerals into diplomatic mementoes.1 Recent scholarship
clarifying the makers and materials in use has reframed attributions and shed
new light on the material culture of the late imperial period. Building upon this
research, this chapter explores the gift of a Fabergé kovsh from Tsar Nicholas II
to an English courtier, Victor Albert Spencer, Lord Churchill, as a case study in
the nature of Russian imperial gifting during the late nineteenth century. For
further context, it discusses the significance of the kovsh and the use of hard-
stone in the design of such gifts.
The history of the Churchill gift presents a rare opportunity to examine
a Russian courtly gift of Fabergé that is not part of the Royal Collection. At
first sight, the significance and value of the object are seemingly diminished
by its packaging. The unadorned hinged box of light holly wood (fig. 8.1) does
1 The term “lapidary art” is used in this essay to encompass the cutting, grinding, and polishing
methods used by stone carvers to create jewellery and decorative objects. A sub-category of
this is the mosaic inlay technique known as pietra dura.

194 Cynthia Coleman Sparke
Figure 8.1 Fabergé kovsh presented by Nicholas II to Victor Albert Spencer, Lord Churchill
(front view, with original holly wood fitted case), 1896, gold-mounted ruby,
diamond, and agate, private collection.
IMAGE COURTESY OF BONHAMS
little to break the viewer’s gaze, apart from its bevelled edges softening what
would otherwise be right angles, and the application of a characteristic trefoil
hinged clasp. It was the designer’s intent to have customers rest their eyes and
to build suspense before discovering the contents of the fitted case. The duality
of delaying the recipient’s curiosity and feigning modesty, with a disarmingly
simple container that was widely recognised by those initiated to be the firm’s
output, increased the anticipation and ultimately the pleasure of the gifting
ritual. In this case, the unusual shape of the box under discussion suggested
that its contents would not be small and flat. A cufflink box has a narrow and
compressed form, so a recipient familiar with Fabergé cases could surmise that
the piece had some height and volume.
Once the hinged cover is lifted back, the gaze is drawn from a polished
agate bowl up towards a diamond and ruby-set handle formed as a double-
headed eagle (fig. 8.2). The joint between the two sections comprises a triangle
and stepped square, both diamond-set with striped enamel motifs recalling
Renaissance style ornament—a characteristic feature of the output of the
workmaster Mikhail Perkhin. This traditional Russian ladle, known as a kovsh,
is nestled in a silk-lined case whose interior cover is stamped Fabergé.
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Fabergé Hardstone in Imperial Gifting 195
Figure 8.2
Fabergé kovsh presented by Nicholas II to
Victor Albert Spencer, Lord Churchill (front
view, detail), 1896, gold-mounted ruby,
diamond, and agate, private collection.
Hardstone’s Enduring Success for the House of Fabergé
The legendary House of Fabergé, best known for privately commissioned

Easter egg gifts to Russian empresses, had a far broader repertoire of designs. It
was these that ensured the global success of what had begun in St Petersburg
in 1842 as a modest jewellery venture by Gustav Fabergé—a Baltic German of
Huguenot extraction.2 The founder’s son, Carl, was born in 1846 into the busi-
ness, but left Russia in 1860 to move with his family to Dresden.3 While study-
ing there, he visited the Grünes Gewölbe [Green Vault], the museum founded in
1723 by Augustus the Strong that contained thousands of masterpieces, many
incorporating hardstone. Examining such treasures inspired a variety of lapi-
dary art objects, figures, and animal carvings later produced by the House of
Fabergé. In 1864 Carl Fabergé began a “Grand Tour” of Europe, complement-
ing an educational component in each city with visits to the most prominent
2 For more on the history of the Fabergé firm and its place within the decorative arts of late
imperial Russia, see Cynthia Coleman Sparke, Russian Decorative Arts (Woodbridge: Antique
Collectors’ Club, 2014), 114–43.
3 Hereafter, all references to “Fabergé” refer to the firm, or to Carl Fabergé if a person.
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museums. This afforded him time to study pietra dura techniques when in
Florence, further consolidating what he had absorbed in Dresden.4 Returning
to Russia in 1866, he joined the family firm and was assigned to the repair and
restoration of archaeological artefacts at the Imperial Hermitage Museum, a
role that he would maintain ‘pro bono’ for the next fifteen years.5 During that
time, Carl Fabergé was able to study the collection’s holdings in great depth,
tracing the rise in European taste in Russia under Peter the Great and sub-
sequent monarchs. The eighteenth-century empresses Elizaveta Petrovna and
Catherine II were inclined to luxury and enthusiastic patronage. Both added
numerous objects in the western taste to their imperial jewellery collections,
such as gem-encrusted snuff boxes which were de rigeur for storing tobacco
powder. These closely examined treasures would provide future inspiration for
Fabergé designs.
The reputation of the firm gained considerable momentum at the “Pan-
Russian Exhibition” held in Moscow in 1882, at which its replicas of Scythian
treasures previously unearthed in a Crimean burial mound in the 1860s
delighted Alexander III. The reference to the sophisticated archaeologi-
cal remains of these nomadic tribespeople underscored Russia’s links with
ancient civilisations. Such evidence bolstered the emperor’s cultural policy of
looking inward at the empire’s rich history and reviving national traditions. By
working on such designs, Fabergé was showing further initiative and attracting
the emperor’s notice.
Three years after the success of the Scythian copies, the first imperial egg
was commissioned for the emperor’s consort, Maria Feodorovna. This patron-
age provided the crucial “Imperial Warrant” that bestowed additional cachet,
as works created by appointment to the imperial family were stamped with
the double-headed eagle on the inside lining of every fitted case. This mark of
prestige increased sales of Fabergé’s luxury goods to a wider market—those
customers who could own a trinket from the royal supplier but who would
never mix with the aristocratic or diplomatic recipients of Fabergé’s most lavish
gifts. Such presentations inspired those with means to become Fabergé clients
in their own right. The designs could be modified to create bibelots enticing
princes, courtesans, industrialists, and heiresses, and soon the firm scaled up
its production, opening an outlet in London in 1903 to meet the aspirations of
4 Pietra dura flourished under the Florentine Medicis in the sixteenth century as a hardstone
technique in which pieces of coloured stone were cut and joined together to create mosaic
images that could be adapted for use as table-tops and wall panels.
5 For a general history of Fabergé, see Ulla Tillander-Godenhielm, Fabergé: His Masters and
Artisans (London: Unicorn, 2018), 26–35.
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Figure 8.3
Fabergé kovsh presented by Nicholas II
to Victor Albert Spencer, Lord Churchill
(rear view, detail with inscription), 1896,
gold-mounted ruby, diamond, and agate,
private collection.
Edwardian society. Within a relatively short time the firm was catapulted from
a modest jewellery concern to a global empire, with Carl Fabergé trained in
commerce and craftsmanship at its helm, and his brother Agathon, the cre-
ative talent, at his side.
As business prospered, a new staffing strategy was required to entice inde-
pendent workshops to work with the brand. A succession of head workmas-
ters was appointed to oversee production in St Petersburg, beginning with
Erik Kollin (1872–86), then Mikhail Perkhin (1886–1903), and finally Henrik
Wigström (1903–17). They were responsible for workmasters who coordinated
the day-to-day efforts of artisans and apprentices and were guaranteed a
steady stream of orders conceived by Fabergé designers. This line of command,
radiating down from Carl Fabergé himself, ensured that the constituent parts
of a finished product, such as enamel, gold work, or carved stone elements of
a completed piece, dovetailed impeccably. It was, after all, the craftsmanship
and finishes that were valued by clients over the intrinsic cost of the diamonds
or precious metals that were incorporated into these objects of virtue.
In fully hallmarked objects produced in St Petersburg, the partnership
between the House of Fabergé and the specific workshops responsible was
generally evident. It was signalled by striking the rim or underside of a gold or
silver surface with the initials of the person tasked with overseeing production
alongside the Fabergé mark, if space allowed. In addition, a number indicat-
ing the metal purity, the symbol of the city of manufacture, a date reference,
and, occasionally, a scratched inventory mark were present. Variations of these
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Figure 8.4 Fabergé invoice showing kovsh entry with price, 1896.
IMAGE COURTESY OF VALENTIN SKURLOV
marks were struck on every item as the firm expanded from St Petersburg to
branches in Moscow, Odessa, Kyiv, and London.
The firm’s innovative approach to materials and designs was underpinned
by the creative talent of craftsmen who ensured the brand’s success. In his
memoirs, former workmaster Franz Birbaum recalled that the jewelled setting,
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Figure 8.5 Cabinet record of imperial gifts listing a 335 rouble kovsh supplied for Lord
Churchill, 1896.
IMAGES COURTESY OF VALENTIN SKURLOV
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hinge, or clasp was reduced to providing a technical framework that allowed a

semi-precious stone to take centre stage.6 Whereas formerly a jewelled mount
had all but eclipsed a central stone, it was now used to feature an indigenous
material. In this way, the handle of a kovsh was sometimes a frame (as in a
support structure) to better display a native hardstone. This interplay between
noble and more common stones was a favourite device used by Fabergé design-
ers, and the kovsh given to Lord Churchill provides an example of this design.
The Tsar’s Gift: The “Balmoral Kovsh”
On its reverse side, hallmarks on the handle of the kovsh confirm that the
maker of the gift was Fabergé head workmaster Mikhail Perkhin. Crossed
anchors identify St Petersburg as the location of production, and the metal
standard is confirmed with the assay number 72, roughly equivalent to 18 carat
gold. 56 was the usual standard of metal purity in Russia and the use of 72
grade implied that the object was intended for export. The handle is further
inscribed “Presented to Victor Albert Lord Churchill by the Czar Nicholas II,
Balmoral Sat 3 Oct 1896” (fig. 8.3).7 The style of this engraving suggests the
inscription was added, as was customary, some time after the presentation, but
it offers a strong lead as to the circumstances of its gifting.8
In addition to the hallmarks on the underside of the handle, a series of num-
bers is scratched into the metal. Research into the provenance of objects made
by Fabergé is facilitated by these inventory references when they are pres-
ent and can be cross referenced with the firm’s surviving sales ledgers. Such
entries offer a rich source of archival information and insight into the time
frame, value, specific donor, and recipient of official gifts. There are significant
gaps in the accounts of Fabergé, who ceased production and whose remain-
ing stock and business ledgers were nationalised in 1918. Nevertheless, surviv-
ing documentation shows that the firm played a central role in the history
of state gift-giving during the reign of Nicholas II. And, although the records
are incomplete, the firm’s invoice archived in St Petersburg confirms in this
instance that the kovsh was supplied to the emperor at a cost of three hundred
and thirty-five roubles (fig. 8.4). In addition, the ledgers of the imperial cabinet
6 Franz Birbaum, “Memoirs 1919,” discovered in the documents of A. E. Fersman by Valentin

Skurlov, Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences [Rossiiskaia Akademiia nauk] (“RAN”),
f. 544, inv. 7, c. 63, and published in Géza von Habsburg and Marina Lopato, Fabergé: Imperial
Jeweller (Washington, DC: Fabergé Arts Foundation, 1993), 457.
7 The Russian Sale: 28 November 2018 (London: Bonhams, 2018), lot 80, auction catalogue.
8 Ulla Tillander-Godenhielm, email to the author, July 5, 2019.
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(fig. 8.5), documenting gifts by their Imperial Highnesses during their travels
abroad in 1896, cite “England, Lord Churchill” as the recipient.9 This links the
gift to a member of the Royal Household, Victor Albert Spencer, First Viscount
Churchill (known as “Lord Churchill” at this time).10
Lord Churchill was born in 1864 into an aristocratic family with strong links
to the royal court and is not to be confused with Sir Winston Churchill, a cousin
(fig. 8.7).11 Victor Albert was godson of the queen and named also for her late
husband Prince Albert, but he leaves a faintly documented footprint—neither
journals nor memoirs survive to detail his role as a courtier.12 However, his
published obituary and other brief mentions in contemporary sources indicate
that his upbringing in proximity to Queen Victoria was originally established
by his grandfather, Lord Conyngham, and then his widowed mother, Lady Jane
Churchill.13 Lady Jane was the longest serving Lady of the Bedchamber and
a close confidante of the queen, who referred to her in her diary as “my most
faithful and intimate friend.”14
Surviving photographs of Victor Albert held in the Royal Collection show
him in early life depicted in his mother’s arms, then aged five in Highland dress,
and another posing as a Page of Honour at age thirteen (fig. 8.6).15 Churchill’s
position at court thus stemmed from growing up in the household and sub-
sequently serving as Page of Honour to Queen Victoria and later, as Lord in
Waiting in the Royal Household.16 His access to the queen was certainly influ-
enced by his ancestors’ prior service at court, but his growing responsibilities
9 Valentin Skurlov, email to the author, July 11, 2018. Note that the object that appeared on
the market was described as a kovsh, but Fabergé records in an invoice to His Imperial
Majesty’s Cabinet a kubok, and court ledgers refer to a charka.
10 Spencer was known as “the Hon. Victor Albert Spencer” until 1886, and “The Lord
Churchill” between 1886 and 1902. In 1902 he was made Viscount Churchill.
11 “Obituary—Lord Churchill, 69, dies of pneumonia,” The New York Times (January 4, 1934): 19.
12 A bible inscribed by Queen Victoria “To the Hon. Victor Albert Spencer from his affec.
Godmother Victoria R. I. April 1881” was sold at auction in 2018. See Private Collections:
3 October 2018 (London: Bonhams, 2018), lot 24, auction catalogue.
13 On June 20, 1837 Churchill’s maternal grandfather, Lord Conyngham, acting as Lord
Chamberlain, announced King William IV’s death to his successor and niece, Princess
Victoria. See June 20, 1837, Queen Victoria’s Journals (Lord Esher’s typescripts), RA VIC/
MAIN/QVJ (W), http://www.queenvictoriasjournals.org (hereafter “Queen Victoria’s
Journals”), accessed July 8, 2019.
14 December 25, 1900, in Queen Victoria’s Journals (Princess Beatrice’s copies), accessed
August 27, 2020.
15 The Royal Collection, online catalogue at: https://www.rct.uk/collection, accessed July 8,
2019, (RCIN 2917761, RCIN 2911529, and RCIN 2914422).
16 Obituary—Lord Churchill.
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Figure 8.6 The Honourable Victor Spencer, dressed in Page of Honour full dress uniform, c. 1877,
hand-coloured albumen print, 14.5 × 9.8 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
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and status as a trusted member of the household endured well beyond her
death in 1900.17
From the traces of evidence that survive, an impression is formed of a
well-connected and handsome man with a privileged view of royal life, who
remained publicly discreet on what he had observed. Churchill’s keen aware-
ness of his position is well illustrated by his remembering to honour the queen
as he imparted to her the news of his mother’s death. Victoria appears gratified
to learn that she was never far from Lady Jane’s thoughts, even in her last hours,
as she confides in her diary:
Saw poor Victor Churchill, who was terribly distressed, as I was too. The loss to
me is not to be told. Dear Jane had been with me nearly fifty years […]. Victor
said she had been so happy the last evening, saying she had never spent a pleas-
anter one, except that I was not there, and thought that, but for the trouble it
had given me, which would have distressed her, she could not have had a more
peaceful and blessed death. He thanked me again and again. I could scarcely
speak.18
This passage reminds us of the importance given to demonstrating one’s

esteem to the queen. Churchill’s suggestion that she was central to his mother’s
last hours would have brought her some measure of comfort. Victoria’s diaries
attest to her affection for Lady Jane and, by extension, her godson and name-
sake; it seems likely, then, that the Russian gift to Churchill aimed to please the
queen by acknowledging those closest to her at Balmoral.
What is less clear is how much contact Churchill had with royal visitors.
Although there is no documented evidence of such a meeting, his descen-
dants maintain that he had met Nicholas II on one of his previous visits to
England.19 This might have occurred at the time of the wedding in July 1893 of
the tsar’s cousin, Prince George, the future George V, when Nicholas stayed at
Marlborough House, or the following summer when he joined his future bride
(then Alix, Princess of Hesse) at Windsor Castle, Marlborough House, and
Osborne House.20 Churchill and the emperor were closer in age than much of
17 As his obituary reveals, Churchill subsequently served as lord-in-waiting to Edward VII

and George V.
18 The journal extract is from an entry for December 26, 1900 at Osborne House. See May 26,
1900, Queen Victoria’s Journals (Princess Beatrice’s copies), accessed July 8, 2019.
19 Unpublished conversation between the author and a representative of the Churchill fam-
ily, September 6, 2018.
20 Jane Ridley, Bertie: A Life of Edward VII (London: Vintage Books, 2013), 305; Queen
Victoria’s diary entries for June 23, 25, 27, 29, and 30, and July 4–9, 11–13, 15–18, 21, and 23,
1894, in Queen Victoria’s Journals (Princess Beatrice’s copies), accessed July 8, 2019.
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the hosting entourage during the 1896 visit and they shared, according to fam-
ily recollection, if not exactly a friendship, then a rapport.21 Churchill’s involve-
ment in day-to-day court life would suggest his path had likely crossed that
of Empress Alexandra, who was also the queen’s granddaughter. His precise
duties during the imperial visit are not recorded, apart from a brief mention
that he served as a guide for the empress’s lady-in-waiting and presented both
women with floral bouquets.22 This incident would not in itself warrant the
Fabergé gift that followed, but it does illustrate that Churchill assisted with
hosting the imperial party.
If Churchill had contributed to the success of the Balmoral visit, its plan-
ning stages were nevertheless mired with complications. The reunion between
Empress Alexandra and Queen Victoria was to be a stop amongst a series of
official visits: courtesy calls to relatives in Denmark, Germany, and England;
an official visit to Emperor Wilhelm II at Breslau; and a state visit to France.23
The voyage to Europe followed Nicholas and Alexandra’s coronation in May
of that year, as well as the birth of their first child, Grand Duchess Olga, the
previous November. With such an intense schedule, it was hoped that a break
in England would be restorative for the royal couple. But a concern was raised
that these high-profile visitors would be more easily targeted in London by
anti-Romanov activists. It was deemed safer to receive them in Scotland than
in the capital, which at this time harboured a number of exiled Russian revo-
lutionaries.24 The Assistant Commissioner of Police, Robert Anderson, wrote
to the queen’s Private Secretary, Sir Arthur Bigge, expressing his relief that the
emperor would stay “At Balmoral and not in London. I should be very anxious
indeed if he were here.”25
Correspondence between the British and Russian sides in the lead up to the
visit became increasingly fraught as some of the arrangements were altered.
The arrival of the Romanov party was subject to an unforeseen delay by the
imperial yacht, after which a change of landing docks was proposed by the
Russian side. The queen lamented this “great inconvenience” but it was left to
21 Unpublished conversation between the author and a representative of the Churchill fam-
ily, September 6, 2018.
22 Edith Bulwer-Lytton, Lady Lytton’s Court Diary, 1859–1899, ed. Mary Lutyens (London:
Hart-Davis, 1961), 85.
23 Ulla Tillander-Godenhielm, The Russian Imperial Award System during the Reign of
Nicholas II, 1894–1917 (Helsinki: Suomen muinaismuistoyhdistys, 2005), 331.
24 On the revolutionary émigré movement, see Petr Kropotkin, Memoirs of a Revolutionist,
2 vols (London: Smith, Elder, 1899) and Edward H. Carr, Mikhail Bakunin (New York, NY:
Vintage, 1961; first edn. 1937).
25 The Royal Archives, VIC/MAIN/H/47/92, cited in Helen Rappaport, Four Sisters: The Lost
Lives of the Romanov Grand Duchesses (London: Pan Macmillan, 2014), 39.
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Figure 8.7 Unknown photographer, c.1915. Left to right: Duke of Marlborough, Viscount
Churchill, Winston Churchill, and Major Jack Churchill in an Oxfordshire
Yeomanry encampment. Reproduced in Bonhams Private Collections Auction,
October 3, 2018, 109.
her staff to untangle the logistical consequences. Victoria’s equerry-in-waiting,

the Honourable William Carrington, became progressively exasperated by
conflicting missives from Nicholas II’s representatives, leading him to insist
that any alterations to plans already in place must be confirmed in writing by
the emperor.26 Miscommunications between the parties turned to farce when
it appeared that the Russians might be citing travel dates from the Old Style
Julian calendar, but the British might be working from the Gregorian calendar
running twelve days ahead.27
In addition to concerns over security and rising tensions over cultural dif-
ferences, there were more practical matters to be tackled. The challenge of
finding accommodation for the large Russian contingent caused them to be
referred to by Bigge as the “Russian occupation of Balmoral.”28 At a lunch, Lord
26 Frances Welch, The Imperial Tea Party (London: Short Books Limited, 2018), location 54,
Kindle.
27 Ibid., 41.
28 Bulwer-Lytton, Lady Lytton’s Court Diary, 87.
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Edward Clinton, Master of the Household, amused listeners with accounts of

monumental overcrowding that had resulted in four laundry maids staying
to a bed and expressed his hopes that local storehouses might be purchased
to ease the strain.29 Behind the scenes, the queen’s closest advisers worked
tirelessly to ensure the success of the visit, scheduling entertainment and
engineering various opportunities for informal political discussion to probe
the Russian position towards English causes abroad. Although billed as a pri-
vate stay, the opportunity of hosting the Russian emperor and making use of
this family contact was too good to let pass. After much deliberation, it was
agreed that the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, would attend at Balmoral in an
effort to bring the young ruler around to Britain’s advantage. Turkey, France,
and India were on the agenda, and raising these issues was critical as the sud-
den death of the Russian Foreign Minister, Prince Alexei Lobanov-Rostovsky,
a month before the visit, had created an opportunity to recalibrate alliances.30
The Russian Ambassador, Baron de Staal, was not only popular in England
but a good friend of the Prince of Wales, who hoped his mother the queen
might suggest the baron to Nicholas as a suitable successor to the anglophobic
Lobanov.31 Although the appointment did not come to pass, the dual politi-
cal and family roles played by Victoria could, in this instance, have merged to
England’s advantage.
Lord Churchill’s position in the household ensured his regular atten-
dance at Victoria’s table, as her diaries attest. Multiple entries during her
stays at Osborne House, Balmoral, and Windsor mention dining with “Victor
Churchill,” among other guests.32 This did not cease whilst important visitors
were present at Balmoral. On September 23, 1896 Victoria marked the longest
reign by an English monarch and Churchill joined the Russian imperial party
and others at a celebratory dinner for twenty-two.33 A seating plan preserved
from September 30, a few days before he received the gift of the kovsh, indicates
that Churchill also joined Queen Victoria, Empress Alexandra, various German
cousins, and the inner circle of courtiers at a table for eighteen gathered during
29 Ibid., 77.
30 Margaret M. Jefferson and Lord Salisbury, “Lord Salisbury’s Conversations with the Tsar
at Balmoral, 27 and 29 September 1896,” The Slavonic and East European Review 39, no. 92
(1960): 216–22.
31 Bulwer-Lytton, Lady Lytton’s Court Diary, 71 and 87.
32 In early 1890 alone, Queen Victoria in her diary lists Churchill as having dined five times
with her at Osborne House on January 1, 2, 8, 10 and 13. See June 1, 2, 8, 10, and 13, 1890,
Queen Victoria’s Journals (Princess Beatrice’s copies), accessed July 8, 2019.
33 September 23, 1896, Queen Victoria’s Journals (Princess Beatrice’s copies), accessed July 8,
2019.
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the emperor’s visit.34 In a situation governed by court protocol, members of

the Queen’s Household were placed at the lower half of the table and royal
relations at the upper half.
Perhaps due to his dual role as courtier and godson, Churchill sat flanked
by family and across from the high-ranking Count Paul von Benckendorff,
Head of the Tsar’s Household and brother of the future Russian Ambassador
to London.35 Table places were shuffled around when Nicholas II was unable
to attend that evening due to a toothache, but still, it would be expected for
Churchill to be seated with the ‘household’ half of the table.36 The seating plan
identifying the Empress of Russia, the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, Prince
Francis Joseph of Battenberg, Princess Henry of Battenberg, Princess Victoria
of Schleswig Holstein, Princess of Hohenlohe, and Countess Helena Gleichen
illustrates a tightly bound network of royal cousins gathered for the Russian
visit. These family ties created endless opportunities for the exchange of per-
sonal gifts. From the Russians came a great number of Fabergé presents that
would spread the appetite for the firm’s merchandise as the cousins returned
to their own countries and became the firm’s clients in their own right.
The Russian royals were reported to have been munificent in their gift-giving
during the 1896 visit. From below stairs, the customary gratuity left by visiting
royalty for distribution amongst servants was noted to be particularly generous
on the part of the Russians when Nicholas II reportedly left £1000 before he left
Britain. This was a lavish sum compared to the £100 that had been dispensed
by the Belgian king following a stay at Windsor.37 For foreign court officials and
Romanov family relations, the emperor and empress of Russia would order
gifts from official suppliers including Bolin, Grachev, Hahn, Morozov, and oth-
ers.38 For the purpose of this European tour, Fabergé fulfilled several orders,
intended not only for the stay at Balmoral but also for the Austro-Hungarian,
German, and Danish meetings that preceded it. Gifts were required for Paris
and subsequent segments of the journey too, resulting in an astonishing num-
ber of luxury objects that had to be prepared in time for the trip.
34 Edith Villiers, Countess of Lytton (1841–1936) was a British aristocrat married to Robert
Bulwer Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, and she served as Vicereine of India and Lady-in-Waiting
to Queen Victoria. The countess retained a seating plan which is reproduced in Welch,
The Imperial Tea Party, location 691.
35 Bulwer-Lytton, Lady Lytton’s Court Diary, 79.
36 September 30, 1896, Queen Victoria’s Journals (Princess Beatrice’s copies), accessed
May 19, 2019.
37 Kate Hubbard, Serving Victoria: Life in the Royal Household (New York, NY: Harper Collins,
2014), 213. Lady Lytton also remarks on Lord Clinton’s report of the gift as “very grand.” See
Bulwer-Lytton, Lady Lytton’s Court Diary, 83.
38 Tillander-Godenhielm, The Russian Imperial Award System, 382–87.
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Archival records citing the recipients of gifts presented during the Balmoral
visit reveal that three other guests in attendance at the dinner of 30 September
were also given presents from Nicholas II. Bigge received a nephrite vase cost-
ing two hundred and twenty-five roubles, Clinton a six hundred-rouble neph-
rite knife, and Carrington a charka with Russian coins, valued at four hundred
and twenty-five roubles.39 The Russian custom was for the value of official
gifts to reflect the rank of the recipient. But the list of gifts made to Clinton,
Carrington, Bigge, and Churchill indicates that their costs neither increase
according to the order of importance of their roles at court nor their posi-
tion in peerage terms. There was no logical pattern as to value. Churchill is
by far the youngest and most junior of the four by rank, yet his gift is more
expensive than that given to Bigge. This underlines the esteem with which
Churchill was held within Queen Victoria’s court circle and as a recipient of
the emperor’s recognition. The tightly bound protocol that dictated the hier-
archy of imperial presentation gifts was altered, as sometimes happened, for
gifts made abroad and during semi-official or private visits (as in this case).40
As Tillander-Godenhielm writes: “For gifts to foreign subjects it also seems that
the established rules could be modified to suit the occasion […]. [The] impe-
rial gifts were bound to a hierarchical system, but there nevertheless seems to
have been a margin for interpretation in choosing one for a foreign dignitary.”41
The choice of nephrite for the gifts to Bigge and Clinton was entirely in keep-
ing with Russian imperial gift-giving, being one of Fabergé’s most favoured
materials for this purpose. The supply of this rich green Siberian jade was plen-
tiful and it paired wonderfully with gold mounts and jewelled accents. Why,
then, was agate, rather than nephrite, chosen for young Churchill’s gift? Was
the agate’s striking colour coupled with black and gold accents for the kovsh
a coded reference to the dress uniform of the Coldstream Guards, with whom
Churchill had served? Or did it perhaps allude to Nicholas II’s appointment as
Colonel-in-Chief of The Royal Scots Greys in 1894 (fig. 13.8)? There is precedent
for a recipient’s personal taste or the emperor’s choice to be factored into the
design of a gift; however, there is no firm evidence to link the agate design to
regimental colours.42 Nevertheless, other examples suggest that the protocol
39 Extract of inventory scanned by Valentin Skurlov and emailed to the author on July 11,
2018.
40 Tillander-Godenhielm, The Russian Imperial Award System, 334.
41 Ibid.
42 With thanks to Russell Maloch for electronic and telephone communications between
July 27 and 30, 2019 regarding links between the Churchill kovsh and ceremonial uniform
or military insignia. Churchill was appointed a Lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards
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around gifting could be altered or even disregard a foreign beneficiary or occa-

sion. For example, the close relationship between the Siamese and Russian
courts was solidified by Nicholas II’s visit, as grand duke, to King Chulalongkorn
in 1890. The diplomatic exchanges marking this occasion gave rise to one of
the most fruitful sources of Fabergé patronage, for the Siamese royal house
commissioned some of the firm’s most astonishing nephrite objects (histori-
cally, in Thailand, jade carried the seniority over other stones that, in the west,
is conferred to diamonds).43 Yet, during a state visit to St Petersburg in 1897,
King Chulalongkorn received a yellow enamel cigarette case applied with a
diamond crown of a type usually reserved for senior officials. The value of the
gift was below that usually assigned to the king’s rank, nor did it reflect his cul-
tural appreciation for nephrite. The study of atypical incidents within the pat-
terns of Russian imperial gifting underscores that the type and cost of gifts was
bound to a hierarchical system, but that this sometimes could be modified.44
The use of nephrite and agate for courtly gifting leads us to question how
readily they could be supplied to designers in St Petersburg. The Woerffel
workshop owned large stocks of nephrite and was uniquely placed to deliver
huge quantities of finished items to Fabergé, which then provided the court
with this favoured hardstone.45 Research has confirmed that the agate for
the kovsh must also have been supplied by Woerffel.46 As demand for hard-
stone works by Fabergé increased, the output of other carving workshops was
required to maintain supply, and in 1898 masters in Idar-Oberstein, Germany
were appointed to fulfil orders.
in August 1884 after leaving the Royal Military College and resigned his commission in
September 1889. For more on British honours conferred upon Nicholas II, see Russell
Maloch, “Russian honours: Emperor Nicholas II of Russia,” The Gazette: Official Public
Record, https://www.thegazette.co.uk/awards-and-accreditation/content/100840,
accessed July 24, 2019.
43 For more on the Fabergé–Thai connection, see Peter Schaffer, “Fabergé and the Royal
House of Thailand,” in Ulla Tillander-Godenhielm, Golden Years of Fabergé (New York,
NY: De Gourcuff, 2000), 87–97.
45 Woerffel was a bronze foundry and stone cutting workshop run by a Prussian family
who established themselves in St Petersburg in 1842. The demand for their lapis, agates,
marbles, and other materials sourced primarily in Siberia and the Caucasus resulted in
Fabergé acquiring the company in around 1914, with the namesake himself joining staff at
the firm to ensure ongoing supply and maintenance of production standards. See Tatiana
Fabergé, Fabergé: A Comprehensive Reference Book (Geneva: Éditions Slatkine, 2012),
285–87.
46 Valentin Skurlov, email to the author, January 1, 2019.
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Hardstone: A Triumph in Russian Decorative Art
Attributing the supply of the agate for the Churchill kovsh to Woerffel is all
the more significant due to the complexity involved in researching hardstone
objects by Fabergé. In recent years there has been a great deal of reattribution
of hardstone pieces, so we are forced to re-examine those previously thought to
be by Fabergé. Our improved understanding of contemporary firms including
Sumin, Denisov-Uralsky, and, indeed, Cartier—all of whom fed the increased
appetite for hardstone models in the early twentieth century—have forced a
re-analysis of workshops involved in sourcing, cutting, and retailing Russian
hardstones.47 Many enterprises supplying lapidary art to meet the spiking
demand of early twentieth-century buyers were selecting from the same min-
eral specimens and employing the same carvers, with the finished product
sometimes being further polished before being retailed, as was the case for the
House of Fabergé. An unmarked Cartier hardstone animal figure can appear
identical to one made by Fabergé, apart from being housed in their respective
retailer’s cases.48
The use of hardstone in works of art flourished in the late nineteenth cen-
tury and was firmly established by the time of the Churchill gift, but it was by
no means entirely novel. Ever since the lapidary industry was founded in Russia
in the early eighteenth century following the discovery of various minerals in
Siberia and the Ural mountains, cachet was attached to pietra dura gifts.49 The
patronage of Cosimo de Medici had revived the lapidary artistry of the Grand
Ducal workshops in Florence and its renown spread eastwards through the
Holy Roman Empire.50 Russia furthered its interest in its own mineral wealth
during the reign of Peter the Great, who had admired lapidary art during his
European travels in 1697–98. Peter acquired specimens such as the collection
of Doctor Gottwald in Gdansk for his own Kunstkamera in 1716, and instigated
the exploration and mining of stone deposits, laying the foundations of the
Imperial Lapidary at Peterhof by decree in 1721.51 In the 1740s an artistic stone
workshop was established and then in the 1750s, during the reign of Empress
47 For stone carving by Fabergé contemporaries, see Karl Faberzhe i mastera kamner-
eznogo dela: Samotsvetnye sokrovishcha Rossii, ed. Tatiana Muntian (Moscow: Muzei
Moskovskogo Kremlia, 2011).
48 For more on Cartier and Fabergé, see Géza von Habsburg, Fabergé—Cartier: Rivalen am
Zarenhof (Munich: Hirmer, 2003).
49 Heroes. History in Ural Stone Carving, ed. Ludmila Budrina, et al. (Vaduz: Verlag
Liechtensteinisches Landesmuseum, 2016), 16–18, exhibition catalogue.
50 Ibid., 15–17.
51 On the history of stone carving in Russia see Natalya M. Mavrodina, The Art of Russian
Stone Carvers. 18th–19th Centuries. The Catalogue of the Collection (St Petersburg: State
Hermitage Museum, 2007).
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Elizaveta, the factory worked to replicate Florentine mosaic techniques. Such

initiatives were continued by her successors, for example, Catherine the Great,
who founded the St Petersburg Mining Institute in 1773, to which a museum
was added in 1818.52 Subsequent imperial patrons funded expeditions to the
Ural and Altai mountains to discover new minerals to be transformed into lav-
ish works of art.
With the Peterhof Lapidary Factory located near the capital city and well
away from the sites of hardstone discoveries, the risk, cost, and delays resulting
from these vast distances made it more practical to open stone-cutting facto-
ries in the Urals at Ekaterinburg in 1751, and in the Altai Mountains at Kolyvan
in 1784. Royal patrons capitalised on these natural resources with lavishly dec-
orated palace interiors that impressed court visitors with the abundant natural
wealth and geographical reach of the vast Russian Empire. The rich variety of
coloured stones came to represent Russian opulence, and they were crafted
into imperial gifts sent abroad to mark alliances forged with foreign powers. In
1827, through the intermediary of the Russian ambassador to London, Prince
Lieven, a Russian malachite vase and pedestal made in St Petersburg was pre-
sented by Alexandra Feodorovna, consort of Nicholas I, to Queen Victoria. The
application of mounts formed as the British royal and Russian imperial arms
suggests that this was intended as a diplomatic gift, although records of the
specific circumstances of its presentation are lost.53
Queen Victoria had already been made aware of Russia’s mineral wealth, as
courtly hardstone gifts from the tsar were not limited to malachite veneered
vases but expressed the plentiful variety of the empire’s output. On the occa-
sion of Nicholas I’s visit to England in 1844, the queen was pleased with his
gift of an astonishing guéridon (fig. 8.8). Its table top, enriched with a bouquet
of hardstone flowers carved of various specimens, including agate, within a
Greek key border, was created at the Peterhof Lapidary Factory.54 Raised upon
a bronze base commissioned from Nicholls and Plincke, the fashionable pur-
veyor of silver in St Petersburg known as the “Magasin Anglais,” the combina-
tion of so-called ‘English’ support of the Russian surface was an apt expression
of Anglo-Russian cooperation.55
Beyond palace walls, international interest in Russian design, particularly
with regard to lapidary work, was ignited through the series of international
exhibitions held in the mid to late nineteenth century. Beginning with Russia’s
52 “History,” Saint Petersburg Mining University, http://en.spmi.ru/university/history/,

54 A guéridon is a French side table with a circular top.
55 De Guitaut and Patterson, Russia: Art, Royalty and the Romanovs, 162.
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Figure 8.8 An Imperial Russian gilt-bronze table, the top with a lapidary relief bouquet,
Peterhof Imperial Lapidary Factory, 1844, hardstones, gilt bronze, glass,
participation in the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, the very best in culture
and industry from around the world was on show to the widest audience and
was extensively reported by the international press. This success filtered back
home and encouraged confidence in native talent and indigenous materials
that further stimulated the Russian ‘revival’ style. Several astonishing exhibits
on the Russian stand had travelled from the private Demidov Lapidary Factory
in St Petersburg.56 They represented the material output of the Urals combined
with French technical advances in cutting ever thinner strips of veneer. The
rich juxtaposition of bright green stone mosaic and glittering bronze mounts
astounded onlookers.57 The impact of the monumental malachite vases, chim-
neypiece, piano, and double doors in the Russian display did not escape Queen
Victoria’s attention, and she purchased a vase and pedestal with mounts in the
Rococo taste from the exhibition (fig. 8.9).58
56 After a significant block of malachite was discovered in mines owned by the Demidov
family in 1835, they held a private monopoly on the Russian supply for this material.
Demidov malachite was acquired by imperial lapidaries to fulfil state commissions, an
endorsement that increased the allure of this striking green stone.
57 For a description of the stone’s visual impact at the Great Exhibition, see George Dodd, “A
Russian Stranger,” Household Words, no. 183 (September 1853): 91.
58 The Demidov vase is reproduced in De Guitaut and Patterson, Russia: Art, Royalty and
the Romanovs, cat. no. 227, alongside a fragment of a watercolour by Joseph Nash of the
Russian pavilion at the exhibition. For the Nash painting, see Dickinson’s Comprehensive
Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851, from the originals painted for H. R. H. Prince Albert,
by Messrs. Nash, Haghe and Roberts (London: Dickinson Brothers, 1854).
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Figure 8.9 A vase and pedestal purchased by Queen Victoria and

Prince Albert at the Great Exhibition of 1851, c. 1850,
Demidov Lapidary Factory, St Petersburg, malachite and
gilt-bronze, 220 × 100 × 79 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST © HER MAJESTY
QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2021
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At home in St Petersburg, hardstone specimens did not have to be distilled into

portable illustrations of the wealth and reach of the vast empire. The seem-
ingly endless varied colours and striations could be integrated permanently
and to great effect in designs for palace walls and interiors. In the eighteenth
century the use of such materials on a large scale was costly and largely ear-
marked for royal use. Although agate, chosen for Lord Churchill’s gift, was con-
sidered a more modest and less expensive variety of stone, there was ample
precedent for its use in a royal setting. It had featured in Charles Cameron’s
design for a pavilion commissioned by Catherine the Great at Tsarskoe Selo in
the 1780s. Inspired by ancient Rome, the neoclassical building (fig. 1.4) incor-
porated a wide variety of native Russian hardstones, including agates mined
in Kolyvan.59
The taste for agate was not limited to Russia. It enjoyed a rich tradition in
Idar-Oberstein, originally two towns in a mountainous region of southwest-
ern Germany. The study of agates dates back to the eighteenth century, when
Cosimo Alessandro Collini published a book of specimens and techniques
being practised there.60 The illustrations of polishers lying on their fronts and
operating wheels suggests an established supply system and methodology
for fashioning the agate objects that were renowned in the region. In 1895, a
Russian journal published a study of lapidary craft in Oberstein and Idar by
Alexander von Hamm with a focus on agates. According to a brief note at the
end of the first page, the paper was of considerable interest to the five hun-
dred workers involved in stone polishing in Ekaterinburg.61 This suggests the
Russian region had an existing interest in the extraction, treatment, and mar-
ket for agates whose supply had, by then, run dry and were being sourced in
South America. The stone had been extremely fashionable but had fallen out
of favour by the 1870s. As a European centre for stone cutting, Idar had left a
deep impression on Carl Fabergé during his visits to Germany as an apprentice.
It is entirely possible that he spotted a business opportunity to revive interest
in this stone, as his firm could produce innovative designs, secure a steady sup-
ply of home-grown agate, and employ native carvers. Later, as is well docu-
mented, Fabergé became an avid collector of netsuke and tasked his designers
59 Susan Jaques, The Empress of Art: Catherine the Great and the Transformation of
Russia (New York, NY: Pegasus Books, 2016), 230.
60 Cosimo Alessandro Collini, Journal d’un voyage qui contient différentes observations
minéralogiques (Mannheim: C. F. Schwan, 1776).
61 The publication details the treatment and colouring of agates providing an invaluable ref-
erence. See A. Gamm [Alexander von Hamm], “Granil’nyi promysel v Obershteine i Idare,
1892,” in Otchety i issledovaniia po kustarnoi promyshlennosti v Rossii, 4 vols (St Petersburg:
Tipografiia V. Kirshbaum, 1895), 3: 1–14.
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Figure 8.10 A collection of hardstone animals, mainly by Fabergé. c. 1900, nephrite, jasper,
obsidian, rhodonite, aventurine, chalcedony, 3.7–15.8 cm, private collection.
with producing compact hardstone animals (fig. 8.10) to delight customers.62

The firm’s access to native minerals showcasing the rich variety of deposits in
the Ural mountains and Caucasus dovetailed with the business vision of Carl
Fabergé at its helm. The boundless supply of stone in an industry that could
no longer be sustained by the occasional demand for a monumental vase or
decorative columns, would bestow the values of novelty and craftsmanship
over that of scale. During the last years of the nineteenth century, the taste for
Fabergé objects crafted from hardstone would only increase, and these pro-
vided a source of royal gifts for years to come.
The Significance of the Kovsh and its Design
By 1896, when the kovsh was chosen for Churchill, the form was well estab-
lished as appropriate for courtly gifting. The polished stone bowl with jewelled
handle was not only an expression of contrasting materials serving to showcase
the agate, but the vessel itself held great significance. The use of the kovsh in
62 For more on the Fabergé–Japan connection, see Fabergé and Netsuke, ed. Tatiana Yahiro
(Nikolova) (St Petersburg: Fabergé Museum, 2015), exhibition catalogue.
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diplomatic and state gifting was intended to conjure traditional wooden ladles
used for drinking mead that were in existence before Peter the Great’s reforms.
Although the kovsh gradually lost its practical usage and became relegated to
a nostalgic throwback, it continued to be produced for ceremonial purposes,
carrying with it images of brotherhood and toasting.63 Precious metal kovshi
produced in the Kremlin workshops had been commissioned by Muscovite
tsars as state gifts in the sixteenth century and this practice was re-introduced
during Alexander III’s reign with enamel kovshi by Russian gold and silver-
smiths representing Russia abroad in world’s fairs to great acclaim.64
There was a clear desire that diplomatic gifts demonstrate native indus-
try and cultural heritage using indigenous designs and domestic materials.
Many firms supplied kovshi, but it was Fabergé, as supplier to the Cabinet of
his Imperial Majesty, who revived the preference for native hardstones to be
worked into gifts for foreigners. Kovshi carved in nephrite with jewelled han-
dles set with imperial emblems were a particularly prestigious gift for heads
of state and dignitaries abroad, and all of the known nephrite kovshi used in
imperial presentation gifts were supplied by Fabergé.65 These include the gift
to Sultan Abdulhamid II of Turkey (1898), the Thai King Chulalongkorn (after
1899), King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy (1902), French Minister Adolphe
Augustin Boutiron (1906), King Gustaf V of Sweden (1909), and others whose
recipients are not documented.66
The emperor could not personally choose the vast volume of gifts presented
during his reign and so the designs for most of the imperial presentations inno-
vated by Fabergé were selected based on appearance, access to materials, and
cost, and agreed by the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty. The representatives
of the cabinet were usually tasked with approving and documenting expendi-
tures for commissioned gifts and awards but were not known for their design
innovations. Birbaum recalled that the firm went so far as to subtly influence
the cabinet, as this was staffed by military personnel with, as he saw it, little
understanding of art. When selecting design alternatives for them to choose
from, Fabergé would finish one particular drawing to a higher standard than
others proposed by the firm, and the cabinet would almost invariably focus
63 For further context on the revival of traditional Russian forms and their use as enamelled
objects of virtue by Fabergé and other makers, see Coleman Sparke, Russian Decorative
Arts, 57–74.
64 Early presentations from the Kremlin workshops are preserved in the collection of the
Kremlin Museums and the State Historical Museum in Moscow, as well as the State
Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.
66 Ibid., 487–88.
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on that version as the one to approve.67 Interestingly, later dated presenta-

tion kovshi approved by the cabinet from around 1913 and terminating in bold
imperial eagle handles recall the Churchill kovsh. Or, to put it another way, the
Churchill kovsh predates those models which were created to mark the tercen-
tenary of Romanov rule in 1913 and inspired a great number of variations of the
imperial eagle.
In this case, the cabinet documented the gift, but it would seem that Nicholas
II was personally involved with selecting the gifts that were presented during
the visit of 1896. In this way, the circumstances of the Balmoral kovsh provide
another variation from the usual procedure for gifting. The meeting between
the Russian emperor and the British queen carried enormous importance and
the young imperial couple was intent on creating a favourable impression.
Under the auspices of a private family stay, Nicholas was also at Balmoral as
a grandson-in-law, a newly minted husband and father obliged to defer to his
royal hosts.68 The Churchill gift is thus all the more intriguing due to the prob-
ability that Nicholas II was personally involved in its choice.
This case study of a specific imperial gift has confirmed its pedigree as an
order from the Fabergé firm with Lord Churchill expressly in mind. Archival
documents also revealed a basis of comparison with other presents ordered for
the 1896 stay at Balmoral. This, in turn, has shed new light on the protocol that
governed Russian imperial visits to England, according to which key figures
within the British Royal Household were acknowledged with hardstone gifts of
varying materials and cost. Court protocol could be adjusted to suit a foreign
recipient and courtly gifting incorporating hardstone was an economic use of
natural resources, as well as an advertising platform for its rich variety. As pur-
veyors to the Russian imperial family, the House of Fabergé supplied some of
the most lavish presents from the court during Nicholas II’s rule. Moreover, the
design and manufacture of such objects and their materials reveal much about
the wider context of courtly gift-giving and the history of material culture in
the Russian context.
67 Von Habsburg, Fabergé: Imperial Jeweller, 454.

68 Edward J. Byng, The Secret Letters of the Last Tsar: Being the Confidential Correspondence
between Nicholas II, and His Mother, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (New York, NY:
Longmans, Green, 1938), 111–12.
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catalogue.
Tillander-Godenhielm, Ulla. Fabergé: His Masters and Artisans. London: Unicorn, 2018.
Tillander-Godenhielm, Ulla. Golden Years of Fabergé: Drawings and Objects from the
Wigström Workshop. New York: de Gourcuff, 2000.
Tillander-Godenhielm, Ulla. The Russian Imperial Award System during the Reign of
Nicholas II: 1894–1917. Helsinki: Suomen muinaismuistoyhdistys, 2005.
Welch, Frances. The Imperial Tea Party. London: Short Books, 2019.
Yahiro, Tatiana (Nikolova), ed. Fabergé and Netsuke. St Petersburg: Fabergé Museum,
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Part III
Travels and Dialogues
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Chapter 9
Gavriil Skorodumov and James Walker:

Printmaking and British-Russian Relations in the
Late Eighteenth Century
Zalina Tetermazova
“Tout bon Anglais doit être bon Russe

et tout bon Russe doit être un bon Anglais”1
Count Semen Vorontsov
***
During the eighteenth century the advance of British political and economic
power fostered an increasing interest in British art on the Continent which,
by 1772, had reached St Petersburg and was warmly supported by Catherine
the Great.2 Her admiration for British art greatly stimulated British-Russian
cultural relations; numerous artists and artworks crossed the borders of
Britain and Russia and some noble Russians readily added Britain to their
“Grand Tours.” Thus, against a background of increasing political confronta-
tion, Anglophilia—the interest in all things English—became a noticeable
phenomenon in Russian society.3
This research has been supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art,
London.
1 “All good Englishmen must be good Russians and all good Russians must be good Englishmen.”
See Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova. Kn. 17. Pis’ma grafa S. R. Vorontsova k synu ego grafu (pozdnee
kniazu) M. S. Vorontsovu 1798–1830, ed. Petr I. Bartenev (Moscow: Tip. A. I. Mamontova, 1880),
118.
2 In 1772, the writer and publisher Nikolai Novikov (1744–1818) observed that admiration of all
things English had replaced the vogue for French culture in St Petersburg. See N. I. Novikov,
“Angliiskaia progulka,” Zhivopisets: ezhenedel’noe satiricheskoe sochinenie 1 (1775): 90–91.
3 On British-Russian cultural relations in the eighteenth century see the following publica-
tions by Anthony G. Cross: By the Banks of the Thames: Russians in Eighteenth-Century Britain
(Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research Partners, 1980); Anglo-Russica: Aspects of Anglo-Russian
Relations in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1993); By
the Banks of the Neva: Chapters from the Lives and Careers of the British in Eighteenth-Century
Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Peter the Great through British Eyes:
Perceptions and Representations of the Tsar Since 1698 (Cambridge: Cambridge University

224 Zalina Tetermazova
This affected the art of printmaking, which was the most powerful method
of disseminating visual statements at the time. Moreover, as Anthony Cross has
observed, “it was in engraving that the most significant and productive artistic
interchange between the two countries took place.”4 Through chance circum-
stances and the initiative of Catherine herself, two outstanding printmakers
played a significant role in the spread of Anglophilia and in British-Russian
artistic diplomacy—Gavriil Skorodumov (1754–92) and James Walker (c. 1760–
c. 1823). Skorodumov, a graduate of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St
Petersburg, was sent to London to study and returned to become Engraver to
Her Imperial Majesty. Walker was an eminent British engraver appointed by
the empress to the same position, who moved from Britain to Russia to take
up the post. Although there were periods when both artists were in London
and in St Petersburg at the same time, there is no evidence that they ever met.5
Both were tall and well-built—at least, this was how Skorodumov, a man of few
recorded words, depicted himself in a famous watercolour (after 1785; fig. 9.1)
and how Walker, a man of many recorded words, described his own appear-
ance in his memoirs.6 Shaped to a large extent by the political intentions and
English tastes of the empress, their lives and careers present a story of remark-
able transformations.
This chapter examines the creative paths of Skorodumov and Walker indi-
vidually, with a focus on how artistic diplomacy and certain political, socio-
economic, and cultural circumstances were linked to the changes that each
of them experienced when moving to another country. In the first part of the
chapter the story of Skorodumov is explored. It describes how the artist spent
nine years in Britain and learnt the English manner of stipple, was captivated
by the cult of feelings, and worked independently for private London pub-
lishers. However, on his return to St Petersburg, Skorodumov had to adjust to
his new position as Imperial Engraver. The difficulties of his life and career
reveal a poignant conflict between the private and national spheres, between
Press, 2000); and A People Passing Rude: British Responses to Russian Culture (Cambridge:
Open Book Publishers, 2012), https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0022.
4 Anthony Cross, “Cultural Relations between Britain and Russia in the Eighteenth Century,” in
British Art Treasures from Russian Imperial Collections in the Hermitage, ed. Brian Allen and
Larissa Dukelskaya (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1996), 27.
5 Oddly, there is no mention of Skorodumov in Walker’s Russian memories. Cross has sug-
gested that there might have been rivalry between them, whereas Alan Bird explained this
by Walker’s sense of superiority. See: Engraved in the Memory: James Walker, Engraver to the
Empress Catherine the Great, and his Russian Anecdotes, ed. Anthony G. Cross (Oxford: Berg
Publishers, 1993), 8; Alan Bird, “James Walker: A British Engraver in St Petersburg,” in Allen
and Dukelskaya, British Art Treasures, 96.
6 Cross, Engraved in the Memory, 96.
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Gavriil Skorodumov and James Walker 225
Figure 9.1 Gavriil Skorodumov, Self-Portrait (In the Cabinet of Engravings of the Hermitage),
after 1785, watercolour, Indian ink, quill and graphite pencil on paper,
65.5 × 46 cm, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg.
© STATE RUSSIAN MUSEUM, ST PETERSBURG
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Figure 9.2 Thomas Rowlandson, A Bench of Artists, 1776, ink and graphite on paper, support:
272 × 548 mm, Tate Britain, London.
© TATE IMAGES
independent and state employment, and between the kind of Englishness that
Catherine sought from a Russian artist and the sentimental Englishness to
which he had previously succumbed in London.
Walker, by contrast, was more well received by the empress and her succes-
sors. The second part of the chapter examines how and why Walker’s mezzo-
tint technique appeared to correspond more closely with the cultural policies
of Catherine. An analysis of the prints executed by Walker in London and in
St Petersburg reveals a metamorphosis in approach that was primarily due
to his ability to assimilate the artistic manner and translate the concept of
the original paintings. Yet in some of his Russian mezzotints Walker not only
achieved what might have been appreciated by the empress as an impeccable
combination of Englishness and Russianness, but also, as a person who was
interested in politics, demonstrated (with a hint of irony) his own attitude to
her expansionist foreign policy.
Yet to speak of “Englishness” and “Russianness” as applied to notions of
style may be unhelpful. During this period, it was primarily the surrounding
context and the conditions of commissioning and production that determined
and encouraged particular features in printmaking that were believed to be
“national” characteristics. The requirements of customers in Britain, a predom-
inantly middle-class society and a constitutional monarchy, led to considerably
different strategies of artistic expression than those in the absolute monarchy
of the Russian Empire. We can observe how, having crossed international
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borders, artists were deeply influenced by these conventions, either losing or

acquiring in their works certain national traits. As a consequence, media such
as stipple and mezzotint, which were generally known as “the English manner,”
were used differently in printmaking in Russia to fulfil the political interests of
Catherine. In this chapter, printmaking practice is also viewed as a means of
creating a sort of in-between space where artists, artworks, and iconographic
modes shifted across the boundaries of empires, generating new imaginary
identities.
Gavriil Skorodumov—a Man of Feeling
It owed much to the empress’s increasing admiration of British culture that

Skorodumov, the most celebrated Russian printmaker, draughtsman, painter,
and miniaturist during her reign—cited by scholars as the first Russian artist
to gain European fame—executed most of his prints in Britain.7 Skorodumov
was dispatched to London in 1773 so as “to achieve excellence in the arts.”8
An outstanding graduate of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St Petersburg,
he had received a Gold Medal for two line engravings: Exercise from a liv-
ing model (1771–72), after the painting Cain by Anton Losenko (1768, State
Russian Museum, St Petersburg) and Lot and His Daughters (1772), after Louis
Jean François Lagrenée (late 1750s–early 1760s, State Russian Museum,
St Petersburg). Skorodumov set off with a single leather suitcase containing
his “old dress, linen, shoes, instruments, and other belongings, also one copper
plate, one gold medal from the Academy weighing eighteen zolotniks, and two
silver medals weighing eighteen and thirty six zolotniks, a silver spoon […],
ten Dutch chervonetz, and sheets.”9 He had come a long way from that vast
country in Europe’s remote east to the smaller island nation in its remote west,
as one of those young Russians who visited Britain to pursue studies “in the
useful line.”10
7 Michael Bryan, A Biographical and Critical Dictionary of Painters and Engravers (London:
H. G. Bohn, 1849), 722; Andrew W. Tuer, Bartolozzi and His works, 2 vols (London: Field &
Tuer, 1881), 2: 65.
8 Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv [Russian State Historical Archive],
Moscow (hereafter “RGIA”), f. 789, op. 1, d. 510, l. 2. Quoted in Elena Mishina, Gavrila
Skorodumov: risunok, graviura, miniatiura, zhivopis’ (St Petersburg: ARS, 2003), 9.
9 RGIA, f. 789, op. 1, d. 510, l. 2. Quoted in Mishina, Gavrila Skorodumov, 9.
10 Scots Magazine 43 (November 1781): 601.
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On November 9, 1773 Skorodumov was admitted to the Royal Academy

Schools.11 A few years later, in 1776, we find him depicted in a comic sketch by
Thomas Rowlandson (fig. 9.2), sitting on a bench between some other young
students and hunched over a long table concentrating on the process of draw-
ing. Skorodumov is working hard but looks discontent and a little gloomy.12
Already an educated and accomplished printmaker, he had his own appren-
tices as early as in 1775, and possibly before this.13 What seems significant
is that the very first works created by the artist in Britain may be described
as quintessentially English, to judge by their technique, style, and choice of
subjects. From the mid-1770s to the early 1790s the “cult of feeling” was at the
height of fashion among the British society.14 Skorodumov also witnessed the
emergence of an exceptionally delicate kind of engraving called “the chalk
manner” or “dotted manner,” which in the late nineteenth century was known
as “stipple.”15 Skorodumov quickly learned this elegant new technique, which
used patterns of etched or engraved dots to convey areas of tone, and in 1775
11 Sidney C. Hutchinson, “The Royal Academy Schools, 1768–1830,” The Walpole Society 38
(1960–62): 140.
12 This was perhaps due to his financial difficulties. When the Russian Ambassador to
London, Count Aleksei Musin-Pushkin, asked the President of the Imperial Academy of
Arts, Ivan Betskii, in 1773 to double the salaries of Skorodumov and Mikhail Belskii (a
young painter also sent by the Academy to London) so that they could support them-
selves in such an expensive city, his request was rejected. Instead, the Academy Council
decided to send the students a copy of Ekonomicheskoe nastavlenie—a manual on how to
economise. RGIA, f. 789, op. 1, d. 510, ll. 2, 7–9, quoted in Mishina, Gavrila Skorodumov, 13.
13 As Johann Gottlieb Facius (1748–1814) described in a biography of himself and his
brother, George Sigmund Facius (1750–1819): “In the year 1775, Georg Sigmund Facius
came to England by advice of some Friends, but found not much support till he was
recommended to Mr Scorotomoff [i.e., Skorodumov] who employed him as an assis-
tance in the manner of chalk engraving. John G. Facius was invited soon after to come
to England upon the same condition which was in the year 1776. They continued with
Mr Scorotomoff till he left London.” See: “Short CV attached to the letter of J. G. Facius
from London to his father in Brussels from 15.10.1790,” Archives générales du Royaume
[The National Archives of Belgium], F.150/884, Administration centrale et supérieure de
la Belgique/Lettres interceptées ou restées en poste (1790–1795). Quoted in Olga Baird
(Yatsenko), “British Engravers–brothers Johann Gottlieb (1748–1814) and George Sigmund
(1750–1819) Facius and their brother Septimus: new materials,” https://www.academia.
edu/38338390/British_engravers_brothers_Johann_Gottlieb_1748_1814_and_George_
Sigmund_1750-1819_Facius_and_their_brother_Septimus_new_materials, accessed
July 25, 2020.
14 David H. Solkin, Art in Britain 1660–1815 (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University
Press, 2015), 231–47.
15 Timothy Clayton, The English Print, 1688–1802 (New Haven, CT and London: Yale
University Press, 1997), 216, 304.
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he produced his first stipples. These include Reflections on Clarissa Harlow

(fig. 9.3), after the original by Sir Joshua Reynolds (c. 1771, private collection).
Translating Reynolds’s painting into a stipple print, a medium sometimes
referred to patronisingly as “furniture,” Skorodumov captured and, in many
ways, strengthened the aesthetics of sentiment inherent in the work.16 The
richness of colour, brilliance, and ease of brushwork by Reynolds (of which
the engraver was an admirer) are transformed into a set of dots softly scat-
tered onto the paper, creating a subtle powdery texture of light and shade that
only remotely resembles the colour values of the original.17 Yet this has its
own charm, consistent with an atmosphere of private retreat into the intimate
activity of reading. As well as symbolising, as David Alexander observes, “the
increased interest which women were showing in literature,” this remarkable
print represented Reynolds’s picture in the kind of oval frame that resembles
the mirrors to be found in a dressing room of the period.18 This device might
have encouraged women spectators to associate themselves more closely
with the person depicted. According to the inscription on the second state,
the sitter is reflecting “on Clarissa Harlowe.” She reads Samuel Richardson’s
best-selling novel, Clarissa; or, the History of a Young Lady: comprehending the
most important concerns of private life; and particularly shewing the distresses
that may attend the misconduct both of parents and children, in relation to mar-
riage. This moralising, tragic story of a virtuous young woman, Clarissa, intro-
duced a new type of female heroine—the “woman of feeling.” She represented
the age of sentiment and sensibility and its emphasis on natural and unaf-
fected feelings.19 First published in 1748, the novel enjoyed great success in
Europe, including Russia, during the second half of the eighteenth century.20
16 David Alexander writes: “Such prints were usually bought as ‘furniture,’ that is, to be
framed—often in elegant gilt circles or ovals—and displayed on the wall rather than
being kept in albums and portfolios.” See David Alexander, Affecting Moments. Prints of
English Literature Made in the Age of Romantic Sensibility, 1775–1800 (York: University of
York, 1993), 5, exhibition catalogue.
17 In the report which Skorodumov sent to the Academy of Arts from London, “the
famous royal portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds” was mentioned first among “the best
English artists.” See RGIA, f. 789, op. 1, d. 749, l. 20, quoted in A. A. Trubnikov, “Graver
Skorodumov—Pensioner Akademii,” Russkii bibliofil 3 (1916): 81.
18 Alexander, Affecting Moments, 7.
19 John Mullan, Sentiment and Sociability: The Language of Feeling in the Eighteenth Century
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).
20 The first Russian edition of Clarissa appeared as a translation from French:
Dostopamiatnaia zhizn’ devitsy Klarissy Garlov. Istinnaia povest’; Angliiskoe tvorenie g.
Rikhardsona; S prisovokupleniem k tomu ostavshikhsia po smerti Klarissy pisem i duk-
hovnago eia zaveshchaniia, trans. N. P. Osipov and P. Kil’diushevskii (St Petersburg: Tip.
Sytina, 1791–92).
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Figure 9.3
Gavriil Skorodumov, after Sir Joshua
Reynolds, Reflections on Clarissa Harlow,
1775, stipple engraving on paper, 35.3 ×
29 cm (sheet), 32.9 × 26.6 cm (plate),
Skorodumov’s print was also popular, as in 1785 the worn plate was re-engraved
and republished by the leading London publisher John Boydell.
In The Parting of Romeo and Juliet (stipple engraving, 1775) Skorodumov
managed to add a gloss of sentiment to the original of the Anglo-American his-
tory painter Benjamin West (1778, New Orleans Museum of Art).21 This depicts
the moment of Shakespeare’s tragedy, when, as dawn breaks, Romeo is about
to make his departure. The theatrical monumentality of the original canvas is
transformed into the sentimental privacy of the print by taking a close-up view
of the main characters, framing them within an oval in which the outlines and
bright colours dissolve into the soft refinement of patterns of tiny dots. The
subtle effect is to convert spectators contemplating the performance on stage
into solitary readers of Shakespeare’s masterpiece.
During his almost ten years in London (1773–82) Skorodumov entirely suc-
cumbed to the “cult of feeling,” producing miniature stipples such as Cleopatra,
Artemisia, and Lady Augusta Campbell, after the originals by Angelica
Kauffman (location unknown), Zara after Philip-Jacques de Loutherbourg
(location unknown), Circassian Lady (Selima), and Venetian Lady (both after
his own drawings). The latter bore the inscription “G. Scorodoomow inv. &
Sculp.” [Skorodumov designed and executed] but was clearly inspired by
21 Since the painting was dated 1778, it is most likely that Skorodumov was able to see it
before completion. See Helmut von Erffa and Allen Staley, The Paintings of Benjamin West
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986), 276.
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West’s Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus (1768,

Yale University Art Gallery). In these works, female figures were captured in
“affecting moments,” to use Alexander’s phrase, either crying, mourning, or
contemplating.22 Also among Skorodumov’s productions were prints after
the numerous classically-sentimental allegorical, mythological, and literary
compositions of the period featuring Graces and Cupids, such as An Offering
to Love, a roundel after Kauffman (before 1777, Vorarlberger Landesmuseum,
Bregenz), or unfortunate lovers, like Abelard and Héloise Surprised by Fulbert,
also after Kauffman (location unknown). These subjects were in accord with
fashionable stipples by the celebrated Italian printmaker, active in Britain,
Francesco Bartolozzi (1728–1815), and his circle.23 Printed in black or in colour,
these works harmoniously corresponded to the heightened sensibilities of the
enlightened British middle-class society.24 When transported to distant Russia,
such engravings brought with them an air of British elegance and sentimen-
tality; such were, for instance, the English stipple works in the collection of
Empress Maria Feodorovna that adorned the exquisite neoclassical rooms of
her imperial residence in Pavlovsk.25
22 Alexander, Affecting Moments, 5.

23 In most publications on Skorodumov, Bartolozzi is believed to be his teacher; how-
ever, there is no direct evidence of this. Yet, in his report to the Academy of Arts,
Skorodumov observed that “the best printmakers in Europe are to be found in London,
namely F. Bartolozzi in historical genre, Woolet in landscapes, also Vivares and several
others.” RGIA, f. 789, op. 1, d. 749, l. 20, quoted in Trubnikov, “Graver Skorodumov,” 81.
David Alexander has suggested that Skorodumov studied with Victor Marie Picot (1744–
1805), who published several of his engravings. See David Alexander, “A Cosmopolitan
Engraver in London. Francesco Bartolozzi’s Studio 1763–1802,” Print Quarterly 35, no. 1
(March 2018): 26.
24 The historian Nikolai Karamzin (1766–1826), who travelled to Britain in 1790, agreed that
“the English are enlightened and intelligent […]. Here, artisans read Hume’s History, ser-
vant girls—Yorick’s sermons and Clarissa. Here, a shopkeeper will argue sensibly about
the commercial advantages of his country, and a villager will discuss with you the elo-
quence of Sheridan. Here, newspapers and magazines are in everyone’s hands, not only
in town, but in small villages as well.” Letters of a Russian Traveler, 1789–1790. An account of
a young Russian gentleman’s tour through Germany, Switzerland, France and England, by
N. M. Karamzin. Translated and abridged by Florence Jonas. Introduction by Leon Stilman
(New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1957), 329.
25 Maria Feodorovna (1759–1828), born Duchess Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg, became
Empress Consort of Russia as the wife of Emperor Paul I in 1797. Their residence, Pavlovsk,
was designed by the Scottish architect, Charles Cameron, upon the order of Catherine the
Great. Maria Feodorovna’s collection included engravings by Skorodumov, Thomas Burke,
William Ryland, and others, set in gilded frames. See “Iz moei kollektsii v Pavlovske …”
Angliiskaia graviura XVII–nachala XIX veka iz sobraniia imperatritsy Marii Fedorovny, ed.
N. I. Stadnichuk (St Petersburg: GMZ “Pavlovsk,” 2017), 15–16, exhibition catalogue.
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Figure 9.4
Gavriil Skorodumov, Count Sergei
Petrovich Rumiantsev, 1781, colour stipple
on paper, 17.5 × 12.2 cm, State Historical
Museum, Moscow.
© STATE HISTORICAL MUSEUM,
MOSCOW
The culture of sensibility seems to have corresponded to Skorodumov’s nature.

This can be assumed from his first biography, a hagiographic account written
by the artist’s nephew in 1852 on the basis of statements by his brothers, con-
temporaries, relatives, and friends. Here, Skorodumov is described as:
Gifted with excellent features of mind and heart […] so very well educated that
he always followed the rules of strict morality and social graces; people were fas-
cinated by the distinct refinement of his words and manners; Skorodumov espe-
cially respected women, and for this they loved him, and respected the purity of
his thoughts and nobility of his feelings.26
Elegant as it is, Skorodumov’s style of stipple appears less refined than those
of Bartolozzi, Thomas Burke, and other printmakers in Britain, who managed
to create in their best works ethereal fragile figures with elongated propor-
tions, often emerging against pastoral landscapes, seemingly natural and yet
26 “Odarennyi otmennymi kachestvami uma i serdtsa […] tak prevoskhodno obrazovan,

chto postoianno sobludal pravila strogoi nravstvennosti i svetskikh prilichii; okru-
zhavshie ego plenialis’ zhnchetlivoiu izyskannost’iu v ego slovakh i obrashchenii; zhen-
shchin Skorodumov osobenno uvazhal, zato i zhenshchiny liubili ego, uvazhaia chistotu
ego myslei i blagorodstvo chuvstv.” Pavel N. Skorodumov, “Gavriil Ivanovich Skorodumov.
Pervyi znamenityi russkii graver,” Syn otechestva 8 (1852): 66.
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Figure 9.5 Odalisque, Lucknow, India, c. 1810–20, gouache on paper, CBL In 69.19, Chester
Beatty Library, Dublin.
© THE TRUSTEES OF THE CHESTER BEATTY LIBRARY, DUBLIN
dream-like. Perhaps the only example of Skorodumov’s work that displays the
subtlety and elegance of the best British stipples is his miniature portrait of
Count Sergei Petrovich Rumiantsev (1781) (fig. 9.4), after his own drawing.
Though lacking the graceful ease of British prints, the stipples by Skorodumov
show a certain clarity, brightness, and, in some cases, monumentality of form.
These qualities made his interpretations of Oriental themes particularly suc-
cessful, of which the most remarkable example is A Sultana, created in 1777
after the original painting by de Loutherbourg (location unknown).27 Painted
by a French artist active in Britain, this motif of Turquerie—a gorgeous odal-
isque in a luxurious boudoir, dressed in flowing robes and a turban, and play-
ing with her pet parrot—evokes in the spectator’s imagination the aura of a
Turkish seraglio.28 In the print, the effect of sensuality is achieved primarily by
27 Briony Llewellyn, The Orient Observed. Images of the Middle East from the Searight
Collection (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1989), 115, exhibition catalogue.
28 On de Loutherbourg, see Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg: 1740–1812, ed. Oliver Lefeuvre
and David Bindman (Paris: Arthéna, 2012).
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a superb stipple technique. Dots and short strokes create an almost tactile illu-
sion of the lightest feathers in the sultana’s hair, the silk of her dress, her soft
skin, and the delicate shine of her pearls. The poetic inscription corresponds
harmoniously with the image: O let me press thee, / Pant on thy Bosom / Sink
into thy arms, / And loose myself into Luxurious fold.29
Remarkably, one of the impressions of this print made its way to the north
of India and was used as a source for a gouache painting, Odalisque, created in
c. 1810–20 in Lucknow (fig. 9.5), centre of a strong Muslim culture of Awadh—
an important, semi-independent province in the declining Mughal Empire.30
As a fine example of what Mildred Archer has called the “Company School” of
hybrid Europeanized painting, this extraordinary artwork must have appealed
to the tastes of Awadh elites, who demonstrated a keen interest in European
art.31
In comparison with the print, the Lucknow painter not only expanded the
scene by the addition of two pillars, cabinet, statuette, and a mirror in the
French Empire style, but also endowed the Turkish motif with more recogni-
sable features. A European woman dressed in “Turkish” robes is converted into
a Muslim beauty; her facial features in the print differ noticeably from those
in the gouache. As a translation of the engraving (almost certainly taken to
India by an Englishman), created by a Russian engraver active in Britain, from
the original by a French artist, who was himself inspired by the Turkish mode,
this somewhat decadent scene embodies a new imaginary identity—one that
could only occur in the process of multiple translations in an in-between space
where artists, artworks, and iconographic conventions shifted across boundar-
ies between east and west, across edges of empires, and between Ottoman,
French, British, Russian, and Indian cultures.
In 1782 Skorodumov returned to St Petersburg at the invitation of the
empress to take up the position of Imperial Engraver and Keeper of Engravings
in the Hermitage.32 His main duty was to execute prints from paintings in the
Imperial Collection and portraits of the imperial family, which necessitated a
29 Verses from a popular play of 1714: N. Rowe, The tragedy of Jane Shore: Written in imita-
tion of Shakespear’s style (London: Printed for Bernard Lintott, 1714). Karamzin mentioned
Jean Shore [sic] as one of the favourite dramas of the English. See Karamzin, Letters, 317.
30 Linda York Leach, Mughal and Other Indian Paintings from the Chester Beatty Library,
2 vols (London: Scorpion Cavendish, 1995), 2: 772–76.
31 Mildred Archer, Company Paintings: Indian Paintings of the British Period (London:
Victoria and Albert Museum, 1992), exhibition catalogue.
32 On the circumstances of his invitation to Russia, see the letters of Catherine the Great to
Baron Grimm, reproduced in Sbornik Imperatorskogo Russkogo Istoricheskogo Obschestva,
148 vols (St Petersburg: Tip. Imperatorskoi Akademii nauk, 1867–1916), 23: 240.
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Figure 9.6
Gavriil Skorodumov, after Fedor Rokotov,
Catherine II, 1783–84, stipple engraving
and etching on silk, 44.5 × 33.5 cm, State
Historical Museum, Moscow.
MOSCOW
considerable shift in his representational strategies. The result was a peculiar

artistic compromise, of which a vivid example is an exquisite stipple engraving
(fig. 9.6) created in 1783–84 after an original painting by Fedor Rokotov (1769–79,
oil on canvas, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg).33 Depicting the empress
in the brilliance of her power as a strong ruler of a great nation, and yet hint-
ing of femininity and even tenderness, this remarkable print shows an unusual
combination of seriousness of subject and delicacy of style. Catherine emerges
solemn and magnificent in regal splendour, wearing the Small Imperial Crown
of Russia, a laurel wreath, and an ermine mantle decorated with the insignia
of the Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle the First-Called (the highest order of
chivalry in the Russian Empire) and the Order of Saint George (established by
the empress as the highest military decoration).
The charm of her gentle appearance as rendered in the fashionable medium
of stipple reduces the pomposity of the composition. Catherine looks less ele-
vated and more humane, appearing as the true “Mother of the Fatherland,”
in accordance with the title that had been presented to her by the deputies
of the Legislative Commission in 1767. The award was of enormous political
importance, especially for a woman who came to power having overthrown
33 The work’s inscription includes the designation “Graveur de S: M: I [Sa Majesté Impériale]:
de toutes les Russies a S. Petersburg.”
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her husband; it served as an act of coronation by representatives of all social

classes and raised the empress’s prestige both at home and abroad.
In the third state the portrait image was supplemented with Catherine’s
radiant monogram and a double-headed eagle (symbol of the Russian Empire)
turning one of its heads towards a crescent (symbol of the Ottoman Empire)
and amicably threatening it with a sceptre.34 The other head keeps a close eye
on the plaque with the inscription “Georgie,” while the eagle patronizingly takes
this under its wing. At the same time, it clutches an oval tablet with a map of
Crimea inscribed at the top “Peti Tarta” [Little Tartary]—an explicit reference
to Russian military victories and imperial ambition.35 The print appears to
have been executed and published shortly after the formal proclamation of the
annexation of Crimea by the Russian Empire on April 8, 1783, and the conclu-
sion of the Treaty of Georgievsk on July 24 in the same year, which established
eastern Georgia as a Russian protectorate. The printed image thus glorified
the two most significant achievements of Catherine’s foreign policy that had
gained her popularity among the people. Magnificent and feminine, yet solid,
it expressed the empress’s political strategies in promoting the idea of Russia
as a strong, civilised, and liberal state, governed by an enlightened monarch.
Somewhat similar was the approach of Vladimir Borovikovskii in his Catherine
II taking a Walk in the Tsarskoselsky Park (1794, oil on canvas, Tretyakov Gallery,
Moscow). Depicting the empress in the English manner, promenading in the
park with her English greyhound, yet casually pointing at the Chesme Column,
Borovikovskii combined the idea of the state and military power with the lan-
guage of sentimentalism and sensibility.36
It was in St Petersburg that Skorodumov created his Monument to Peter the
Great, or Bronze Horseman (etching; late 1780s–1792). This is exceptionally large
in scale, printed from two copper plates on two sheets of paper that remained
unfinished and of which a unique impression has survived in the Library of the
Russian Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg. The grandeur of its composition
and the significance of content make it look considerably different from the
privacy and sentimentality of Skorodumov’s British prints. This difference may
be partly explained by the circumstances of the commission—private London
publishers versus the empress and the High Court—as well as by the differ-
ence between lifestyles, ways of thinking, and political and socio-economical
34 In printmaking, a state is a different form of a print, caused by a deliberate and perma-

nent change to a matrix.
35 “Little Tartary” was a name formerly used to describe the Crimean Khanate [Uluğ Orda ve
Deşt-i Qıpçaq], a Crimean Tatar state that existed from 1441 to 1783.
36 The Chesme Column in the royal residence in Tsarskoe Selo was built to commemorate
three Russian naval victories in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–74.
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strategies. It also somewhat corresponds to the difference in approach to for-

eign policy between the Russian and British monarchs. As David Griffiths has
observed, “the Empress viewed foreign policy as the chief occupation of the
monarch entrusted with the governance of a large state. If he [the monarch]
were wise, she insisted, he would base his foreign policy on the larger political
interests of state, as defined by its geography, history and national character.”
But she was “constantly confronted with the British reluctance to endanger
its commercial interests.” For George III, she thought, “individual and group
self-interest was displacing national interest as the motive force behind British
foreign policy.”37
Despite her aim to create a more liberal and humane image of the empire,
the sentimentality of stipple did not ally with the national interest as under-
stood by the empress. It was probably due to the artist’s reluctance to give up
his fascination with the English cult of feeling and adapt to his new respon-
sibilities as Imperial Engraver that Skorodumov’s career did not prosper in
Russia. He died suddenly, in the prime of life, aged thirty-seven.38
The decision not to conform may explain Skorodumov’s highly unusual
self-portrait drawing (fig. 9.7), in which he depicted himself in quick strokes
of pen and ink, wearing casual late-eighteenth-century dress and an extensive
wig, and covering half of his face with his right hand. The occurrence of such
an image in eighteenth-century Russian culture is problematic. Self-portraits
were rarely made, and those which have come down to us do not possess this
special sense of self-expression, being rather the depictions of self as an “other.”
An effect of the intimate presence of the artist—astonishing for this time—is
caused by placing the head close to the picture plane, and also through a very
particular gesture of his right hand. This resembles one of the most disturbing
and revealing self-portraits by Albrecht Dürer (1491–92, Graphische Sammlung
der Universitätsbibliothek, Erlangen) signifying the expression of profound
melancholy, against which the mockingly ironic “Maurice Quentin de La Tour”
smile contradicts.
37 David M. Griffiths, “Catherine II, George III, and the British Opposition,” in Great Britain
and Russia in the Eighteenth Century: Contacts and Comparisons, ed. Anthony G. Cross
(Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research Partners, 1979), 306.
38 According to Dmitrii Rovinskii, based on primary evidence, in the last years of his life the
artist took to drink. On the day of his death he visited a merchant, Strunnikov, and after
their dinner Skorodumov lay down on the grass; by the evening “he became choleric” and
passed away before nightfall. See: Dmitrii A. Rovinskii, Podrobnyi slovar’ russkikh graverov
6–19 vv., 2 vols (St Petersburg: Tip. Imperatorskoi Akademii nauk, 1895), 2: 890.
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Figure 9.7
Gavriil Skorodumov, Self-Portrait, late
1780s–early 1790s, ink on paper, 21.6 ×
18.1 cm, Yaroslavl Art Museum, Yaroslavl.
© YAROSLAVL ART MUSEUM
Nothing like it is known from this period in Russia, but this kind of composition
often appeared in British art of the period, as in works by Thomas Frye, James
Barry, and Henry Fusely, and was frequently seen in Romantic portraiture. It
finds common ground with Henry Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling (1771) and
may be also viewed as an ironical reference to the allegorical female figure of
Prudence (1777, stipple) in one of the four prints depicting the cardinal virtues
which Skorodumov had published in London and dedicated to Catherine. As
a self-depiction of one of the most extraordinary Russian artists on the border
between the Enlightenment and the Romantic movement, this portrait could
only be the work of a person who had spent a long time in Britain and had
acquired a different concept of self.
It is no coincidence that the notion of authorship barely existed in Russia at
that time. As Gennadii Vdovin has observed, the only thing that was authorised
in eighteenth-century Russia was power. Therefore, the concepts of “autocra-
tor,” “authority,” “autocracy” and even “autocratrix” were widely used.39 It was
the strength of this power that Reynolds brilliantly expressed in his The Infant
Hercules Strangling Serpents (fig. 4.1), of which a mezzotint by the British
engraver James Walker was published in 1791 in St Petersburg and in 1792 in
London (fig. 9.8).
39 G. N. Vdovin, Persona–Individual’nost’–Lichnost’: Opyt samopoznaniia v iskusstve russkogo

portreta XVIII veka (Moscow: Progress–Traditsiia, 2005), 128–29.
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James Walker and the Free Elegance of Englishness
The increasing enthusiasm for England on the continent during the second
half of the eighteenth century manifested itself not only in a huge export trade
in English prints but also in the fact that many eminent British printmakers
obtained prestigious foreign appointments. Sir Robert Strange (1721–92) went
to France and Italy; Valentine Green (1739–1813) toured through Flanders and
Holland to the Rhineland, where he was appointed mezzotint engraver to the
Elector Palatine Carl Theodor (1706–99) at Mannheim and Professor of the
Academy at Düsseldorf; and Charles Townley (1746–c. 1800) was elected to the
Florentine Academy, became Engraver to the King of Prussia, and was a mem-
ber of the Berlin Academy.40 It was thus to be expected that Catherine’s inter-
est in British art would result in the invitation to a British engraver to work for
the Russian court, and the choice of Walker proved to be mutually beneficial.
Yet it is still under debate as to how the artist managed to attract the empress’s
attention: Alexander has suggested that Walker might have had Russian con-
nections due to his being a son of a captain in the merchant service, while
Alan Bird assumed that Walker might have been recommended to Catherine
by her ambassador in London, or by another artist.41 It has been suggested
that by the time of his invitation to St Petersburg, Walker had already shown
interest in Russian themes, having produced Catherine II. Empress of Russia.
Engraved by Mr Walker, from a Painting in the Possession of his Excellency the
Russian Ambassador (1783, etching) and The Empress of Russia’s Travelling
Equipage (1784, etching, engraving) published by Harrison & Co. in London.
However, both these images were likely engraved by another printmaker,
William Walker (1729–93), who executed numerous etchings for this publish-
ing house that are similar in style. Whatever the channels through which he
obtained the imperial post, Walker’s reputation as a foremost printmaker and
his distinguished skills in highly fashionable mezzotint and stipple engrav-
ing were of interest to Catherine, whose cultural policy sought to promote
the image of Russia in Europe. The achievements of her reign, as expressed
by an outstanding British printmaker in the elegant “English manner,” would
undoubtedly enhance Russia’s prestige in an international context.
Nearly the entire corpus of Walker’s artistic production is in the medium
of mezzotint, to which he had devoted most of his time since 1773 (the same
year that Skorodumov arrived in London), when he was apprenticed to one of
40 Clayton, The English Print, 261–82.

41 David Alexander, “James Walker: A British Engraver in Russia,” Print Quarterly 12, no. 4
(December 1995): 412; Bird, “James Walker,” 93.
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the most distinguished mezzotint printmakers, Valentine Green. Walker devel-

oped into an engraver “quite equaling his master in the balance and solidity of
his tone.”42 Like that of Skorodumov, Walker’s first London period (1780–84)
coincided with the fashion for the cult of feeling, and this had a noticeable
impact on his printmaking. Yet, his version of sensibility differed somewhat
from that of the Russian artist. Early mezzotints such as Faith (1781) after
Daniel Gardner, Death of the Widow’s Son (1782) and Alceste (1783) after Prince
Hoare, Scene in Cymbeline (1783) after Edward Penny, Village Doctress (1783)
and Hobnelia or The Spell (1783) after James Northcote, and Fair Persian (1784)
after Maria Cosway, depicting “affecting moments” from biblical, theatrical,
and literary stories, combine the effects of sentimental drama with a gloss of
restrained elegance. They are distinguished by their vibrant and solid tonality
and the painterly effect of smooth transitions from shade to light that are char-
acteristic of this technique (“mezzotint” derives from the Italian mezza tinta,
i.e., half-tone).
A striking portrait of the British barrister, The Honourable Thomas Erskine
(fig. 9.9), engraved after the original by Lemuel Francis Abbott (location
unknown), can be regarded as Walker’s version of “the man of feeling.” The
good-looking Erskine is represented in the reclining melancholic posture, with
pensive and penetrating gaze. He enjoyed a brilliant career, having surmounted
poverty and lack of education to become a leading lawyer—his memorable
speeches were described by contemporaries as having an “electrical effect”
on the audience, throwing them into “a trance of amazement.”43 Somewhat
similar is the effect of Walker’s mezzotint, mesmerizing by the gentleness of
its modelling with mellow hues of black and white, the restraint of the compo-
sition, and, at the same time, the feeling of permanence and weight, creating
the image of an extraordinary man, sensitive and melancholic, modest yet self-
confident, highly intelligent, and playing an active part in life.
The long and eventful Russian period (1784–1802) in Walker’s biography has
been examined by scholars, but is considered here in a comparative perspec-
tive, taking account of the context of British-Russian cultural relations.44 His
42 Arthur M. Hind, A history of engraving & etching from the 15th century to the year 1914: being
the 3d and fully revised edition of “A short history of engraving and etching” (New York:
Dover Publications, 1963), 279.
43 William Pannill, “Thomas Erskine: Lawyer for the Ages,” Litigation 27, no. 2 (Winter 2001),
53–59.
44 On Walker see: N. G. Saprykina, “Gravirovannye listy Dzheimsa Uokera v sobranii
Nauchnoi biblioteki im. A. M. Gor’kogo MGU,” in Iz kollektsii redkikh knig i rukopisei
Nauchnoi biblioteki Moskovskogo universiteta, ed. E. S. Karpova (Moscow: Izd. MGU, 1981),
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move to Russia caused some changes in the artist’s manner; it gave rise to the
special style forged by his extraordinary ability to respond to the differences
in painterly manner of the originals, and by the impact of the Russian context
and Catherine’s cultural strategy. Another factor was his own ironic personal-
ity. Besides his “Englishness” and masterly technique, it was Walker’s amenable
temper, his genuine admiration of the empress, and his readiness to express
the particular image of Russia which Catherine wished to see in his prints that
gained him a successful career in St Petersburg.
Numerous mezzotints executed by Walker after Old Master paintings in
Catherine’s collection greatly contributed into the glorification of her reign
among the public in Britain, where she had been praised as “The Friend of
Letters / The Succourer of the Innocent / The Patroness of Science and /
Promoter of the Liberal Arts.”45 In 1792 a selection from these engravings was
published in two sets titled A Collection of prints, from the Most Celebrated
Pictures in the Gallery of Her Imperial Majesty Catherine the Second and begin-
ning with a dedication to the empress accompanied by a fine miniature portrait
of Catherine the Great (fig. 9.10) after a cameo executed by Grand Duchess Maria
Feodorovna (1789, glass, bronze, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg). It is
well known that the empress was obsessed with the medium of cameo, having
assembled an extraordinary collection of these in the Hermitage. Representing
her image in this fashionable “antique” form, with a somewhat Grecian pro-
file, as Minerva (Roman goddess of wisdom, warfare, and patron of the arts)
wearing a helmet adorned with a laurel wreath and the figure of the sphinx
(symbol of reason and faith, devoted to the god Apollo and to the sun and wis-
dom, “from which nothing can be concealed” and also associated with Ancient
Egypt), this miniature stipple revealed the concept of the whole set of prints as
a celebration of Catherine’s wisdom, generosity, and power.46
The variety of images selected, created after originals by such painters as
Mikhail Shibanov, Johann Baptist von Lampi the Elder, Sir Joshua Reynolds,
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and many others, demonstrated the richness of
81; Anthony Cross, “Introduction,” in Cross, Engraved in the Memory, 1; Alexander, “James
Walker,” 412–14; Bird, “James Walker”; Ekaterina Skvortcova, “New Facts about James
Walker in Russia,” Print Quarterly 32, no. 3 (September 2015): 271–93; and Peter Fuhring,
“James Walker’s Stocklist and Prospectus for the Portrait of Catherine the Great,” Print
Quarterly 33, no. 3 (September 2016): 286–93.
45 “A genuine anecdote of the Empress of Russia,” Scots Magazine 35 (July 1773), 358.
46 See the reissue of the book of Emblems and Symbols first published in Russian in 1705 by
the order of Peter the Great in Amsterdam: Emblemy i simvoly, ed. Aleksandr E. Makhov
(Moscow: Intrada, 2000), 51, 58.
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Figure 9.8 James Walker, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, The Infant Hercules, 1792, mezzotint on
paper, 66 × 58 cm, State Historical Museum, Moscow.
© STATE HISTORICAL MUSEUM, MOSCOW
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Figure 9.9
James Walker, after Lemuel Francis
Abbott, The Honourable Thomas
Erskine, 1783, mezzotint on paper, 37.7 ×
27.5 cm, The British Museum, London.
MUSEUM, LONDON
the collection while representing it in the elegant English manner. Seen as an

ensemble, these prints differ considerably from mezzotints that Walker had
created in London. This was partially due to the different character of the
originals, as well as his ability to see differences between the national schools
of painting. Evidence is provided by the Statistical Scale that the artist wrote
in his Russian memories, which examines the French, English, Dutch, and
Flemish schools in the categories of originality, study, effect, colour, charac-
teristics, feeling and expression, composition, portrait, and value.47 But most
important was the completely different challenge that this set should be the
expression of imperial grandeur. The very combination and arrangement of
the prints suggests that the image of the Russian Empire should first be found
in the glory of its military victories (yet presented with ease and elegance) and
progressively in a more liberal perspective, as a civilised state where the arts
flourished.
Walker expressed this concept in a compelling way in his print after a por-
trait of the empress by Shibanov (fig. 9.11). This image must have particularly
accorded with Catherine’s taste and intentions, for she readily presented it to
her confidants, including the diplomat and art critic Friedrich Melchior Baron
47 Cross, Engraved in the Memory, 148–52.
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von Grimm (1723–1807) and the Actual Privy Councillor, Senator, and Cabinet
Secretary, Aleksandr Vasil’evich Khrapovitskii (1749–1801).48 The engraving
shows her Imperial Majesty in travelling dress and a fur-trimmed tasselled
hat, believed to be the outfit worn by the empress in 1787 when she made the
significant journey of about seven hundred and fifty miles to inspect the vast
lands acquired in recent Ottoman campaigns. The manner in which Catherine
is depicted has the effect of rendering her close presence; Walker did not dis-
guise the wrinkles of aging skin or the fatigue around the eyes that affects the
traveller after a long and arduous trip. Yet her still pose and her confident, per-
haps even despotic look, along with the stars of the Orders of Saints Andrew,
George, and Vladimir (the latter established by Catherine in 1782 with the
motto “Pol’za, Chest’ i Slava” [Benefit, Honour, and Glory] of which “Pol’za” and
“Slava” can be seen in the print) explicitly signal her high status and military
authority, and distance her from the viewer.
The distinctive combination of verisimilitude with a formal portrait com-
position was borrowed from the original painting by Shibanov, possibly a serf
artist to Prince Grigorii Potemkin (1739–91).49 In comparison with the original,
Walker’s version in mezzotint added to the image a hint of graceful ease and
unaffected simplicity. Walker transformed the formally conceived portrait into
an unobtrusive expression of quiet grandeur of a power confident in its own
strength and wisdom. The sovereign who, back in 1762, had been described by
Horace Walpole as “this northern Athaliah,” “Alecto in Muscovy,” and “Fury of
the North,” and whose deportment, in the words of Walker, impressed onlook-
ers so much “that even a Frenchman was overcome by it,” was presented in
a surprisingly informal manner.50 This corresponds with the poetic inscrip-
tion in French written below the image by the diplomat and historian Louis
Philippe, Count de Ségur (1753–1830). He compared Catherine to a magnet that
attracted towards the north and called her a “happy conqueror, wise legisla-
tor, lovable woman, great person […] who travels through her country, pours
48 See: Dnevnik A. V. Khrapovitskogo. 1782–1793: S 18 ianvaria 1782 goda po 17 sentiabria 1793

goda (Moscow: Russkii arkhiv, 1901), 33; Dmitrii A. Rovinskii, Podrobnyi slovar’ russkikh
gravirovannykh portretov, 4 vols (St Petersburg: Tip. Imperatorskoi Akademii nauk, 1886–
89), 2: 808.
49 In his memoirs, Walker referred to Shibanov disparagingly as “a drunken Russian painter
[…] whom they were obliged to lock up in a room to keep him from spirits, during the
time her Majesty was sitting.” See Cross, Engraved in the Memory, 66.
50 See: Horace Walpole, Letter to Mann, August 12, 1762, in The Yale edition of Horace
Walpole’s correspondence, ed. Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis and Ralph Sharp Brown, 48 vols
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937–83), 22: 64; Cross, Engraved in the Memory, 59.
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happiness into it, being a master of the art of reigning […] spreading the light,
ruling out mistakes.”51
It is particularly remarkable how Walker managed to combine the
“Englishness” of his technique with a certain grandeur and restraint that
were appropriate for the Russian context. Describing Catherine’s reaction
to Reynolds’s Infant Hercules, he wittily observed that although her Imperial
Majesty had spoken to him of the great talents of “our immortal president,”
whom she had admired not only as a painter but also as an author (she had
read and ordered the translation of Reynolds’s Discourses for the use of the
students in the Academy of Arts), the picture had not been as well received
as it might. “The style was new to them, and his mode of loaded colouring not
understood,” Walker wrote; “in short, it was too voluptuous for their taste; for,
however exquisite his feeling may be, his undecided drawing, and his distribu-
tion of effect, light, and shadow, are certainly not in the severe classic style
of N. Poussin.”52 Having translated the subject which “was not entirely pleas-
ing to her Imperial Majesty, who perhaps did not quite agree with the painter,
that her empire was in its leading-strings,” Walker brilliantly conveyed in his
mezzotint (fig. 9.8) the loose and free brushwork by Reynolds. Not only this,
he also, being “a staunch Pittite,” placed below the image quite an eccentric
double-headed eagle, and thereby managed to express, with a hint of irony,
his own attitude to this “allusion of infant exertions of the colossal empire of
Russia.”53 Although Walker constantly expressed his admiration for Catherine
in his memoirs, he had no illusions about her foreign policy. In 1796 he warned
the British agent William Eaton that: “The Empresses Plans are so Grande her
Schemes so deeply laid and has them so much at heart, that with the very
favorable circumstances of the Times I believe she will succeed in almost all
of them.”54
Walker, a citizen of the most commercial of nations, continued publish-
ing and selling many of his prints independently both in St Petersburg and in
London while he was Engraver to Her Imperial Majesty with a salary of 1,000
roubles. This did not incur the disapproval of the empress, as she evidently
51 “Reconnoit vers le Nord l’aimant qui nous attire / Cet heureux conquérant, profond lég-
islateur, / Femme aimable, grand homme et que l’envie admire / Qui parcourt ses États,
y verse le bonheur, / Maître en l’art de régner, Savante en l’art d’écrire, / Répandant la
lumière; écartant les erreurs; / Si le sort n’avoit pu lui donner un Empire, / Elle aurait eu
toujours un Throne dans nos coeurs.”
53 Ibid., 69, 146.
54 Melville Castle MSS, GD51 / Sec.1 / 508, Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh, cited in Bird,
“James Walker,” 102.
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Figure 9.10
James Walker, after Grand Duchess Maria
Feodorovna of Russia, Catherine II, c. 1789,
mezzotint, 12.9 × 10.7 cm, Royal Collection
Trust, London.
understood that this would advance the image of Russia and her own reputa-
tion as a generous supporter of the arts. It was at this time in the late eigh-
teenth century, following the Russo-Turkish war of 1787–91, that Catherine had
been heavily attacked in the British press; numerous caricatures critiqued her
aggressive external policy and moral turpitude.55
After Catherine’s death, Walker retained his position of Imperial Engraver
under Paul I and Alexander I, and continued during his second London period
(1802–c. 1823) to sign his various privately published mezzotints, such as The
Battle of Leipzig (1817) and The Battle of Vittoria (1820) after John Augustus
Atkinson, and Ludovico Ariosto (1819) after Titian, as “Engraver to His Imperial
Majesty the Emperor of Russia, & Member of the Imperial Academy of Arts.”
This was a shrewd commercial move and an imperial echo of his long sojourn
in Russia. On his return to London from Russia, Walker observed:
How blessed is that country, more especially if it be under a despotic govern-

ment, where the sovereign […] by private and personal instances of generosity
and attention, watches even the rise of infantine genius. […] The great and rich
are not sufficiently aware of the influence of their example, whether good or
bad; nor how much it would tend to the benefit, comfort, and honour of society,
were their leisure hours more devoted to the encouragement of genius, talents,
and industry.56
55 Anthony G. Cross, “Through the Distorting Mirror. Russia in British Caricature, to 1815,”
Pinakoteka, 18–19 (2004): 74–82.
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Figure 9.11 James Walker, after Mikhail Shibanov, Catherine II (Empress of Russia), mezzotint,
published May 1, 1789, 39.9 × 29.2 cm (sheet), 39 × 28 cm (plate), Royal Collection
Trust, London.
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In the eyes of Walker, Catherine was undoubtedly such an ideal sovereign, for
he was among the fortunate beneficiaries of her generosity and interest in the
arts.
Catherine’s active promotion of those involved in printmaking not only had
a crucial impact on the lives and careers of Skorodumov and Walker, but also
contributed to the cultures of both Russia and Britain and their mutual views
of one another. It resulted in numerous fine printed images, some of which
were conceived to promote the absolute monarchy of the Russian Empire, yet
were linked to an artistic tradition that was flourishing on the distant shores of
the constitutional monarchy of Great Britain. Through the delicately coloured
sentimentality of Skorodumov’s stipple and the free elegance of Walker’s mez-
zotint, a new air of “Englishness” entered the realm of imperial Russia and had
far-reaching consequences. In Russia, stipple proved to be suited to book illus-
tration and the production of small-scale portraits and was popular among
private publishing houses. For example, over three hundred stipple portraits
of eminent Russians were published in Moscow in the first quarter of the nine-
teenth century by Platon Petrovich Beketov (1761–1836).
Unlike Skorodumov, Walker’s duties in St Petersburg included teaching at
the Imperial Academy of Arts, where he had four pupils. One of them was
Ivan Selivanov (1776–after 1831), an outstanding master of colour mezzotint
who created four remarkable print portraits of the imperial family. Interest in
mezzotint was revived in Russia in the 1820s, when Henry Dawe (1790–1848)
was invited to translate into mezzotints the painted originals from the Military
Gallery of the Winter Palace (1819–28) by George Dawe (1781–1829) depicting
portraits of generals who had took part in the Napoleonic War of 1812 (fig.
11.1).57 This may be explained by the exceptional suitability of this technique
for rendering the concept of imperial grandeur and glorification of the national
military, but, more importantly, it echoed the ideas celebrated in Walker’s mez-
zotints in the age of Catherine and reflected the enduring presence of Russian
Anglophilia.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
“A genuine anecdote of the Empress of Russia.” Scots Magazine 35 (July 1773): 358.
Dnevnik A. V. Khrapovitskogo. 1782–1793: S 18 ianvaria 1782 goda po 17 sentiabria 1793 goda.
Moscow: Russkii arkhiv, 1901.
57 On the history of the Military Gallery, see Allison Leigh’s essay in Chapter 11 of this volume.
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Karamzin, N. M. Letters of a Russian Traveler, 1789–1790. An account of a young

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Chapter 10
“Smart Travels:” The Encounters of Grand Duke

Nicholas with British Art and Artists, 1816–17
Irina Marisina
What an extraordinary influence Royalty has on a man & on the World. It seems […] to
rub off some of its gold dust on you, as a Butterfly does the down from its silky wing on
your fore finger.1
Benjamin Robert Haydon
***
Between November 1816 and March 1817 Grand Duke Nicholas, the future
Emperor Nicholas I, travelled to Britain and toured extensively. Staying for just
under four months, he arrived at Deal in the morning on November 6, 1816
and departed from Dover on March 3, 1817. Everything was carefully recorded
in the diary which he kept throughout the journey.2 The grand duke’s British
explorations began with a ten-day stay in London, after which the royal party
embarked on the first of several round trips covering a long list of towns and
cities: a forty-day visit to Edinburgh and Glasgow passing through Warwick,
Birmingham, York, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne on the way up, and taking in
The author is extremely grateful to F. I. Melent’ev of the State Archive of the Russian
Federation and Irina O. Pashchinskaia for their help and support throughout this project.
1 Diary entry of Benjamin Robert Haydon from 1816, cited in The Diary of Benjamin Robert
Haydon, ed. Willard B. Pope, 5 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960) (hereaf-
ter “Diary of B. R. H.”), 2: 91.
2 Nikolai Pavlovich Romanov [Nicholas I], “Journal de mon […] voyage […] en Angleterre.”
(Sobstvennoruchnyi zhurnal puteshestviia imperatora Nikolaia Pavlovicha, v Angliiu),
Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii [State Archive of the Russian Federation]
(hereafter “GARF”), f. 672, op. 1, d. 27. Several handwritten versions of Nicholas’s London
sightseeing programme in English and French can be found in the British Library
Manuscripts Department, London, Lieven Papers, Add MS 47237, Vol. II (ff. 150) (hereaf-
ter “Lieven Papers”), f. 88, ff. 90–91 verso. For a Russian translation of the programme see
Irina M. Marisina, “Dovershit’ vospitanie puteshestviiami …” Poezdka velikogo kniazia
Nikolaia Pavlovicha v Angliiu v 1816–1817 godakh,” in Russkoe iskusstvo Novogo vremeni.
Issledovaniia i materialy. Sbornik statei. Vypusk 14, ed. Igor’ V. Riazantsev (Moscow: Pamiatniki
istoricheskoi mysli, 2012), 151–53.

“Smart Travels” 253
Carlisle, Liverpool, Manchester, Gloucester, and Oxford on the way back. This
was immediately followed by a month-long exploration of London and its
royal suburbs (Windsor, Claremont, Richmond, Chiswick, Twickenham, and,
further afield, Brighton) and a two-week journey to Plymouth, Bristol, and
Bath. Finally, after a further week in the capital, the grand duke left Britain.
He would return just once for a brief visit in June 1844 as Emperor Nicholas I.
This chapter focuses on the engagement of Grand Duke Nicholas with
British art during his tour, through two encounters with British painters—
William Allan (1782–1850) (fig. 10.1) in Edinburgh and Benjamin Robert
Haydon (1786–1846) (fig. 10.2) in London. It explores the unpredictable trajec-
tory of this cross-cultural royal patronage and the circumstances which could
lead an artist either towards or away from receiving a sought-after Russian
imperial commission. Ending in dissimilar outcomes, the two episodes high-
lighted the young royal’s Anglophile interests, recalling the artistic preferences
of his grandmother, Empress Catherine II. They also shaped some of his own
future approaches to collecting and monarchic patronage: Nicholas’s early per-
sonal tastes as spectator continued to be reflected in the image of a man who
“undoubtedly loved art” but “loved it in his own way.”3
Before the Voyage: An Artistic Education in St Petersburg
The voyage took place after detailed preparation, with continuous supervision
on the part of his mother, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, and with the
approval of her son, Emperor Alexander I. Twenty-year-old Nicholas was to
follow a specially designed programme including trips to the northern, cen-
tral, and south-western regions of the country, as well as a stay in the capital.
The itinerary of Maria Feodorovna’s own European Grand Tour, which she had
undertaken in 1781–82 together with Nicholas’s father, Grand Duke Paul, had
excluded Britain. Therefore, to prepare her son she sought the advice of those
with considerable personal experience of the country, such as Admiral Ivan
Feodorovich Kruzenstern. Highly respected by the emperor and the dowager
empress, Kruzenstern had commanded the first Russian circumnavigation
of 1803–06 and his detailed description of the voyage was published in 1809.
He had returned from a long stay in England the year before the grand duke’s
visit, and was seen as the right person to supply up-to-date recommendations
3 Nikolai N. Vrangel’, Iskusstvo i gosudar’ Nikolai Pavlovich (Petrograd: Sirius, 1915), 7.
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254 Irina Marisina
as to social conduct for the tour and priorities for sightseeing.4 In particular,
Kruzenstern insisted that Nicholas should visit Scotland; not having been
there himself, he believed it to be “a country perhaps even more remarkable
than England,” due to its recent “extraordinary progress in Arts, Sciences,
Agriculture, commerce and factories.”5 It is worth noting that the “Arts” appear
first in this list of Scottish achievements, given the grand duke’s subsequent
encounter with Allan in Edinburgh.
Naturally, the arrival of the Russian royal visitor was reported in the British
press, which continued to inform its readers about Nicholas’s further move-
ments and interests during the course of the visit. Grigorii Glinka, a writer who
accompanied the grand duke as a tutor, communicated in his letters to Maria
Feodorovna the “most flattering reviews” in what he called publichnye listki
[public leaflets], in which nearly every step or public utterance of Nicholas’s
was “noticed and appreciated.”6
The Gentleman’s Magazine pithily summarised those subjects which had
received the grand duke’s special attention in London and when touring various
parts of the country as “our manufactories, etc.”7 In the capital, they included
such sights as steam engines and water works, a gas lights factory, a printing
press, a sawmill, a cannery, and a large brewery, among others. “Et cetera” stood
in this case for numerous other places of interest, such as: state, government,
and military institutions; learned academic societies; schools; prisons; hospi-
tals; and markets. As well as these, the grand duke was expected to see a suit-
able number of historic monuments, museums, and art galleries, and several
private residences known for their art collections.8 In London alone, Nicholas
saw, among other things: the Tower of London and its Menagerie, the Bullock
4 The Admiral’s stay in England in 1814–15 was part of the preparation for the Russian circum-
navigation of 1815–18 led by Otto von Kotzebue. See Memoir of the celebrated Admiral Adam
John de Krusenstern, the first Russian Circumnavigator. Translated from the German by his
daughter Madame Charlotte Bernhardi and edited by Rear-Admiral Sir John Ross, C.B., & c.,
with a Portrait and Correspondence (London: Longmans, Green, Brown and Longmans, 1856),
28–29.
5 The handwritten manuscript in French, ten pages long, untitled, and signed “Kruzenstern” is
preserved in Lieven Papers, Add MS 47237, f. 52.
6 Grigorii Glinka, Puteshestviia velikikh kniazei Nikolaia Pavlovicha i Mikhaila Pavlovicha. 1816
i 1817 gody. Russkii Arkhiv, izdavaemyi pri Chertkovskoi biblioteke Petrom Bartenevym. God 15
(1877). Book 2, nos. 5–8 (Moscow: Universitetskaia Tipografiia [M. Katkov], 1877), 201.
7 The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle. From July to December 1816. Vol. 86, part 2
(London: Nichols, Son, and Bentley, 1816), 620.
8 See Irina O. Pashchinskaia, “Puteshestvie velikogo kniazia Nikolaia Pavlovicha v Angliiu
v 1816–1817 godakh: znakomstvo s korolevskimi residentsiiami,” https://www.academia.
edu/40319169/, accessed September 17, 2019.
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Figure 10.1 William Nicholson, Portrait of Sir William Allan (1782–1850), Artist (In Circassian
dress), 1818, oil on canvas, 91.4 × 71.4 cm, Scottish National Portrait Gallery,
Edinburgh.
© NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND
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256 Irina Marisina
Museum of Antiquities and Natural Curiosities, the Hunterian Museum of

Anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons, the Royal Academy of Arts, an
exhibition of Benjamin West’s work at the Pall Mall Galleries at the British
Institution, and the portrait studio of Thomas Lawrence in Russell Square.
Nicholas recorded the viewing of West’s pictures in his Journal, stating that
the painter was “famous” and “very old” (he was seventy-nine at the time).
Evidently, he could not remember the artist’s name, for he left a blank space,
possibly intending to fill it in later: “Puis allés voir les tableaux d’un peintre
fameux, Mr. _____ viellard.”9 The pictures that he recalled, with some factual
and linguistic errors, were “tres grand tableau ‘Jésus et Lazard [Lazarus]’ et
‘Jésus réssuscitait la fille de la veuve’” (probably The Raising of Lazarus [1788,
Glasgow Museums Resource Centre, Glasgow] and Christ Raising the Widow’s
Son [18th century, Yale University Art Gallery]). Glinka’s account mentioned
that Nicholas saw “Vestovy kartiny” [West’s paintings] but gave no titles.10 In
Lawrence’s studio (“fameux Sir Lorenz”), where he was shown around by a
valet, Nicholas viewed various portraits, which he praised for likeness and lin-
ear correction, and the “collosus” Satan Summoning his Legions (1796–97, Royal
Academy of Arts, London), which he described as “superbe pour le coloris et
dessin.”11
Beside the political reason to restore the good relations between Russia and
Britain that had slightly cooled after the Congress of Vienna, Nicholas’s British
tour had another important goal. It was to be an educational visit, thus falling
into the category of “smart travels” [umnye puteshestviia], to use the epithet
coined by Princess Ekaterina Dashkova, Director of the Russian Academy of
Sciences and a great supporter of such enlightening activities for the Russian
nobility.12 Maria Feodorovna—who as mother was obeyed and sometimes
even feared by her son—made sure that before leaving for London, through
books and lessons with his tutors, Nicholas obtained some prior knowledge
of the country he was going to explore. This required an understanding of its
most notable people, including those who excelled in “sciences and arts, as
9 Nicholas I, Journal, l. 131 ob.

10 Glinka, Puteshestviia, 200.
11 Nicholas I, Journal, l. 145.
12 The epithet “smart travels” appears in Dashkova’s letter to her son, for whom she arranged
a course of two and a half years at the University of Edinburgh in 1776–79. Stating that
the first task of a “smart traveller” should be his “constant attention” to what he sees and
hears, Dashkova defined the experience of such voyages as “always necessary and price-
less treasures,” invaluable for one who possesses them both in private life and public
career. See Ekaterina Dashkova, “Pis’mo synu s rekomendatsiiami vo vremia puteshest-
vii. O smysle slova ‘vospitanie’,” in Sochineniia, pis’ma, documenty, ed. Galina I. Smagina
(St Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 2001), 242, 245.
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well as literature.”13 Kruzenstern’s instructions had stated quite clearly that it

was always better, where possible, to seek personal acquaintance with such
exemplars. The advice proved to be correct with respect to the meetings of
the future tsar with the painters Allan and Haydon in Edinburgh and London
respectively; the encounters are well described in contemporary accounts and
can be justly named among the most interesting episodes of the journey.14
The dowager empress was persistent in her efforts to provide a balanced
university-style education for her son, and this served its purpose well. Despite
his assertions to the contrary—he called his education “scant”—the grand
duke became a relatively learned man, judged by the standards of his time.15
Although showing inclinations mainly towards (and making good progress in)
Mathematics and Physics, from his early years Nicholas was no stranger to art.
A clear manifestation of this was a passion for drawing, one of his favourite
leisure occupations since childhood, and one which continued throughout the
British tour and long afterwards. According to an early biography, Nicholas I
“from a very tender age […] loved to draw no less than to play military
games.”16 His interest was encouraged and perhaps initially inspired by Maria
Feodorovna, who was an art lover and artist herself. Blessed with an extremely
sharp memory, Nicholas in later life recalled from his childhood her pencil
drawing of a “white vase” in one of the rooms of the Winter Palace.17 The whole
13 Lieven Papers, Add MS 47237, f. 34. By the time of the tour, Maria Feodorovna, and pos-
sibly Nicholas himself, knew about the likelihood of his becoming heir.
14 See William Allan: Artist-Adventurer, ed. Jeremy Howard (Edinburgh: Pillians and Wilson
Greenway, 2001), 48–49, exhibition catalogue; Diary of B. R. H., 2: 88–91; Nicholas I,
Journal, 48.
15 See Leonid V. Vyskochkov, Nikolai I. Seriia “Zhizn’ zamechatel’nykh liudei” (Moscow:
Molodaia Gvardiia, 2003), 35. As a counterbalance to his strong interest in the disciplines
of the sciences and military studies (fortification, mechanical engineering, technical
drawing, ballistics, etc.), Nicholas was taught the subjects of History (including that of
Britain), Geography and Statistics, Logic and Ethics, Political Economy and Law, Creative
Writing (Slovesnost’), Art and Languages (French, German, English, Latin, and some
Greek). See Liubov’ N. Kiseleva, “Mify i legendy ‘tsarskoi pedagogiki’: Sluchai Nikolaia I,”
in Istoriia i povestvovanie. Sbornik statei, ed. Gennadii V. Obatnin and Pekka Pesonen
(Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2006), 165.
16 Modest A. Korf, “Materialy i cherti k biografii imperatora Nikolaia I i k istorii ego tsar-
stvovaniia: Rozhdenie i pervye dvadtsat’ let ego zhizni (1796–1817),” in Nikolai Pervyi.
Molodye gody. Vospominaniia. Dnevniki. Pis’ma, ed. Mikhail A. Gordin, et al. (St Petersburg:
Pushkinskii fond, 2008), 67. The grand duke’s diaries, always laconic, kept between 1822
and 1825, are interspersed with identical entries stating simply: “risoval” [was drawing].
See Zapisnye knizhki velikogo kniazia Nikolaia Pavlovicha, 1822–1825, ed. Marina V. Sidorova
and Margarita N. Silaeva (Moscow: Politicheskaia entsiklopediia, 2013).
17 Nikolai I [Nicholas I], Vospominaniia o mladencheskikh godakh, in Gordin, Nikolai Pervyi,
35.
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258 Irina Marisina
Figure 10.2 George Henry Harlow, Portrait of Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1816, oil on panel,
53.2 × 41.6 cm, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.
PHOTO BIRMINGHAM MUSEUMS TRUST / CREATIVE COMMONS CC0
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room was decorated with “rich fresco paintings à l’antique against the gilded
background” and, hanging opposite each other, were “two sketches made in
oils, ‘Alexander [the Great] visiting Apelles’ and […] [Alexander] ‘rejecting the
helmet filled with water, given to him by a Warrior’.”18
From the age of eight, Nicholas was privileged to have renowned Russian
artists as his tutors in art, whom he later remembered and respected. His first
drawing masters were Vasilii Shebuev and Ivan Akimov, and later he took
instruction from Aleksei Egorov and Orest Kiprenskii. Under their supervision,
the grand duke was taught to copy from originals, plaster casts, and works of
the Old Masters, and to try his hand in different techniques (pencil, graphite,
black and red chalk, pen, watercolour, oils, and engraving). He enjoyed por-
traying people, including his teachers, in a grotesque way; later, the walls of his
studies were hung with “beloved English caricatures.”19 He was also inspired
by Kiprenskii’s self-portraits, producing some of his own during 1816–18.20
Most preferred, however, were portraits of horses, either alone or with rid-
ers, often in military dress. Nicholas’s father once giving him a pack of prints,
representing “our army in their previous uniform,” was an event that stuck in
the boy’s memory.21 During his British travels, Nicholas continued to practise
the “horse and rider” theme (fig. 10.3) and a “self-portrait on horseback” is
mentioned among the drawings made by the Grand Duke during his British
travels.22 This interest was supported by his new drawing teacher Alexander
Sauerweid (1783–1844), a Baltic German painter of military scenes whom he
18 Ibid.
19 Marina V. Sidorova, “Malen’koe uvlechenie imperatora Nikolaia I,” Russkoe Iskusstvo, no. 3
(2006), http://www.russiskusstvo.ru/journal/3-2006/a1848/, accessed August 15, 2019.
20 Two of them are preserved in GARF: f. 728, op. 1, d. 2298, ll. 34, 39. See Gosudarstvennyi
Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii. Izobrazitel’nye materialy XIX–nachala XX veka. Katalog
sobraniia. Risunki chlenov Imperatorskoi familii (St Petersburg: Petronii, 2012). See also:
Marina V. Sidorova and Aleksei A. Litvin, “Userdno risoval vsiakii den’,” Rodina 3 (2013): 72;
Urok risovaniia. Katalog vystavki, ed. Larisa V. Bardovskaia, et al. (St Petersburg: Petronii,
2006), exhibition catalogue; Ol’ga Arkhangel’skaia, “Imperator Nikolai I i iskusstvo,”
Dom Burganova. Prostrantsvo kul’tury (2002): 7–33 (12–13), https://elibrary.ru/item.asp?
id=17561913, accessed August 17, 2019.
21 Nikolai I, Vospominaniia, 36. Several engravings of various military uniform were acquired
by Nicholas during his 1816–17 travels. See “Otchet v summe ego imperatorskogo vysoch-
estva velikogo kniazia Nikolaia Pavlovicha, naznachennoi Eia Imperatorskim Velichestvom
Gosudaryneiu Imperatritseiu Marieiu Fedorovnoiu na sobstvennye ego imperatorsk-
ogo vysochestva raskhody. Ot 7-go Sentiabria 1816 po 25-e Aprelia 1817 goda,” in Glinka,
Puteshestviia, 207, 220.
22 See Nicholas I, Journal, l. 129 ob.
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260 Irina Marisina
Figure 10.3 Nicholas Pavlovich Romanov (Grand Duke), A General, from the series “Horses
and riders,” signed and inscribed “Edinburg” [sic], 1817, watercolour, ink, pen on
paper, State Archive of the Russian Federation (“GARF”), f. 728, op. 1, d. 1107, l. 12.
PHOTO STATE ARCHIVE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
most likely met shortly before coming to London, and who eventually moved
to St Petersburg in spring 1817.23
Nicholas may have obtained some early knowledge of British art from
examples of paintings acquired during the reign of Catherine II.24 After the
empress’s death, two works by Joshua Reynolds—Cupid Untying the Zone of
Venus (1788) (fig. 4.4) and The Continence of Scipio (1789) (fig. 4.5)—had found
their way from the Hermitage Picture Gallery into Maria Feodorovna’s private
23 Nicholas’s daughter Olga Nikolaevna recalled that her father “discovered” Sauerweid in
Dresden and especially noted the painter’s ability to make very good copies of other artist’s
works that sometimes sold as originals. See Ol’ga Romanova, Son unosti. Zapiski docheri
imperatora Nikolaia I, Velikoi kniazhny Ol’gi Nikolaevny, korolevy Viurtemburgskoi (Paris:
Voennaia byl’, 1963), 51, https://www.twirpx.com/file/557006/, accessed September 15,
2019; Damiano Rebecchini, “An influential collector. Tsar Nicholas I of Russia,” Journal of
the History of Collections 22, no. 1 (2010): 45–67 (47), https://doi.org/10.1093/jhc/fhp030.
24 By 1794, the Hermitage collection included works by William Dobson (1610/1611–46),
John Wootton (1686–1765), William Oram (active 1737–77), Richard Brompton (1734–
83), Richard Paton (1717–91), Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–92), and Joseph Wright of
Derby (1743–97). See Ermitazh Eiia Imperatorskago Velichestva. Katalog vystavki, ed.
Mikhail O. Dedinkin (St Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha, 2014),
129–30.
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apartments in the Winter Palace.25 Although seeing these works did not
mean, of course, that the young Nicholas knew their origin and the name of
their creator, by the time of his British tour he had undoubtedly been intro-
duced to art history.26 The pleasures of art were certainly not the main topic
occupying his thoughts during the voyage, compared with, for example, the
excitement of being able to secure a rare set of military uniform.27 However,
his travel diary often mentioned such names as Raphael, Rubens, Van Dyck,
and Titian, as well as those of Holbein, Claude Lorrain, Poussin, Guido Reni,
Rembrandt, Tintoretto, Murillo (and “the other Spaniards”), Ruisdael, Teniers,
and Wouwerman. These appeared in the entries that followed Nicholas’s visits
to royal and private residences (for example, Carlton House, Hampton Court,
Wilton House, Warwick Castle, Blenheim Palace, Saltram House, Chatsworth,
Longleat, and Mount Edgecumbe) with rich collections of art treasures,
including Old Masters and antique sculpture galleries.28 Contemporary art-
ists also featured in his journal, although less frequently. At Saltram House,
Nicholas remembered “many” works of Angelica Kauffman (although not of
Reynolds, whose works also were part of the collection), while the only picture
25 A later drawing made by Nicholas indicates that he remembered not only which pictures
his mother had but also where they were hung. See Elizaveta P. Renne, Britanskaia zhi-
vopis’ XVI–XIX vekov. Katalog kollektsii (St Petersburg, Izdatel’stvo Gosudarstvennogo
Ermitazha, 2009), 12.
26 Useful in this way may have been conversations with one of his tutors, Nikolai Isaevich
Akhverdov, a connoisseur and honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Arts, who
had translated, among other works, a treatise by Anton Raphael Mengs on the principles
of the formal classification of Painting (Pis’mo Don Antoniia Rafaela Mengsa, pervago
zhivopistsa dvora Ego Velichestva Korolia Ispanskago, k Don Antoniiu Ponzu, pereveden-
noe s Ispanskago (pisannago samim khudozhnikom) na Italiianskoi, a s Italiianskago na
Rossiiskoi (St Petersburg: Imperatorskii Sukhoputnyi shliakhetnyi kadetskii korpus, 1786).
For the Russian edition, published in 1786, Akhverdov used an earlier Italian translation
of the treatise from the original Spanish. See Slovar’ russkikh pisatelei XVIII veka, 3 vols.
Vypusk 1. A–И, ed. Aleksandr M. Panchenko (Leningrad: Nauka, 1988), 42–43.
27 Aleksei A. Litvin and Marina V. Sidorova, “Ty ko mne pisal, i ia k tebe tsarapaiu …” (Iz
perepiski velikogo kniazia Nikolaia Pavlovicha s bratom Mikhailom), Rossiiskii Arkhiv.
Istoriia Otechestva v svidetel’stvakh i dokumentakh, XVIII–XX vv. Novaia Seriia (Moscow:
Studiia “TRITE” Nikity Mikhalkova, Rossiiskii Arkhiv, 2010), 19: 222. See also: “Day & night,
night & day was he beset with new guns, pistols and machines” (Diary of B. R. H., 4: 657).
28 See, inter alia: Journal, ll. 20 ob., 22, 23 ob., 83 ob., 98 ob., 102 ob., 112, 145, 158 ob.–159. Most
of these artists featured in the Hermitage collection, assembled by Catherine II. Although
certain works, ascribed at the time to Old Masters, were later reattributed, many were
confirmed as originals. See Ermitazh Eiia Imperatorskago Velichestva. Nicholas’s entry
about his visit to Warwick Castle included two drawings—the ground plan of the build-
ing and the famous Warwick vase, a Roman marble antique which at the time was in the
possession of George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick (Journal, l. 23 ob.).
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262 Irina Marisina
Figure 10.4 William Allan, Bashkirs Conducting Convicts, 1814, oil on canvas, 43 × 63 cm, State
that he recalled at the British Institution’s winter exhibition reminded him of

Jean-Louis David (“beau à la Francaise, à la David”).29
A meeting with Allan in Edinburgh took place on December 6, 1816.
Nicholas recounts that he was taken to the artist’s studio by the Lord Provost
of Edinburgh, Sir William Arbuthnot. However, the visit was probably recom-
mended by a member of the grand duke’s entourage, Alexander Crighton, a
medical professional who had been acquainted with Allan in Russia. But
for the encounter, Nicholas might have left the city with just a few engraved
Scottish views and what was described in a Finance report of the journey as “a
plan of Edinburgh, glued on canvas.”30 Yet the meeting resulted in the grand
29 Journal, ll. 158 ob., 131 ob. The 1794 description of the Hermitage picture gallery names four
pictures by Kauffman. See Ermitazh, 145. What reminded him of David was, most likely,
the “colossal” canvas Brutus condemning his sons to death (1812, Musée du Louvre, Paris)
by French artist Guillaume Guillon-Lethiére (1760–1832). The rest of the pictures in this
exhibition were defined by Nicholas as “très mediocre.”
30 “plan Edinburga, na kholste nakleennyi.” Glinka, Puteshestviia, 212.
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Figure 10.5 William Allan, Frontier Guards (Circassian Prince on Horseback Selling Two Boys),
1814, oil on canvas, 43 × 63 cm, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
duke buying three of Allan’s paintings, for a total of two hundred pounds.31
During the tour, he had regularly spent money on art books, engravings, china,
crystal, bronze and silver objects, as well as musical instruments, sheet music,
and costumes (including ladies’ dresses and hats). He also bought garden seeds
and plants for Maria Feodorovna, weapons, items of military ammunition,
horses, and even a parrot.32 But such transactions were mainly made through
dealers or intermediaries, whereas Nicholas’s purchases from Allan were made
directly from the artist in his studio.
Edinburgh, 1816: William Allan
Two of the paintings were evidently chosen as a pair—Bashkirs Conducting

Convicts (1814) (fig. 10.4) and Circassian Prince on Horseback Selling Two Boys
31 Ibid. The entry in the Finance report mentioning also a separate “receipt no. 34” [kvitant-
siia] appeared three days after the visit to Allan’s studio.
32 On Maria Feodorovna’s interest in horticulture, see Ekaterina Heath’s essay in Chapter 5
of this volume.
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264 Irina Marisina
(c. 1814) (fig. 10.5). These works had already been exhibited in 1815 at the Royal
Academy of Arts.33 The third, a slightly larger canvas depicting Haslan Gheray
Conducting Alkazia, the Daughter of Mouradin Bey, across the Kouban (1816)
(fig. 10.6), had remained with the artist since its creation, but was already being
spoken about in Edinburgh artistic circles.34 The painting had originally been
commissioned by a local patron of the arts, the Earl of Wemyss and March
(who was present at the reception given in Nicholas’s honour by the Lord
Provost of Edinburgh). Nicholas expressed such a strong wish to have this par-
ticular work that the earl consented to a copy being made. This was promptly
made by Allan in 1817, and Nicholas secured the original (the copy remains in
the possession of the earl’s descendants).35
Two years before Nicholas’s visit, Allan had returned from nine years of rather
adventurous travels in Russia and Poland (to quote John Gibson Lockhart, “a
residence of many years in various regions of the east”).36 He drew extensively
on this experience, in a manner that was reflected not only in his art but also
in his way of living. In choosing to depict one of his portrait models in the
costume of “a Circassian Prince,” Allan inadvertently introduced something of
a local fashion in Caucasian dress. The trend, for men as well as women, was
picked up by Edinburgh high society, and became a feature at masked balls in
the Scottish capital.37 His studio was described by contemporaries as “the most
picturesque painting room […] in Europe.” This “judiciously-selected museum”
was richly decorated with a selection of ethnographical items, such as cloth-
ing, rugs, and weaponry, brought “at a great expence” [sic] during his travels.38
Allan’s appearance (curly black hair, large sparkly eyes, “strong shaggy brows”)
and especially his attire—a dark Circassian vest, cleverly adapted for his paint-
ing needs—completed the beautiful “effect of the whole.”39
33 The Exhibition of the Royal Academy, 1815. The forty-seventh (London: B. McMillan [n.d.]).
34 All three paintings were previously known under slightly different titles. See Renne,
Britanskaia zhivopis’, 42–46 (cat. nos. 1, 2).
35 Haslan Gheray conducting Alkazia, the daughter of Mouradin Bey, across the Kuban, 1817,
oil on panel, 87 × 70 cm, Collection of The Earl of Wemyss and March.
36 John Gibson Lockhart, Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk. The Second Edition, 3 vols (Edinburgh:
William Blackwood, 1819), 2: 234.
37 Howard, William Allan, 72. The complete attire of a Circassian prince, according to Allan,
cost £200—the exact amount paid to him by Nicholas for his pictures. See Howard,
William Allan, 48; Renne, Britanskaia zhivopis’, 45.
38 For descriptions of Allan, his pictures, and his studio, see Lockhart, Peter’s Letters, 233–48,
and Howard, William Allan, 47–48.
39 Lockhart, Peter’s Letters, 234.
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Figure 10.6 William Allan, The Abduction of a Circassian Woman (Haslan Gheray Conducting
Alkazia, Daughter of Mouradin Bey, Across the Kuban), 1815, oil on wooden panel,
88 × 70 cm, The Museum of Fine Arts, Makhachkala, Russia.
© DAGHESTAN MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS NAMED AFTER P. S.
GAMZATOVA
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266 Irina Marisina
According to a description left by a visitor to Allan’s apartments, the artist’s pic-

tures covered the walls of a room adjoining the studio. With authentic acces-
sories constantly feeding his inspiration, Allan produced genre scenes offering
“a feast of pure delight” and “perfect to the western viewer.40 Sad or joyful, such
figures were set amongst the scenery of the Tauride and Caucasus regions,
whether a grave-looking, flat terrain or exuberant greenery. The paintings that
caught the grand duke’s eye were no exception to this type, providing glimpses
of the everyday existence of captives, horse-mounted guards, and slave traders,
and an adventurous episode from the life of a Circassian prince and national
hero, Haslan Gheray. There was, of course, more to Allan’s works than the
depiction of colourfully attired men and women in unusual surroundings. He
was praised by his compatriots for a masterly handling of colouring and light,
“the chiar o’scuro” [chiaroscuro], prompting comparisons with seventeenth-
century Dutch masters, such as Nicholaes Berghem (1620–83) and Gerrit Dou
(1613–75).41 The “uniform sobriety” of the hues infused the emotional fabric of
his pictures with “a fine feeling of poetry” and that specific type of sensitivity
which solicited a response from the spectator.42 Thus a contemporary critic
saw in Bashkirs—one of the first pictures painted after Allan’s return from
Russia—“the very soul of sorrow.”43
The poetic nature of Allan’s pictures appealed to the romantic side of
Nicholas’s character; soon after their meeting the grand duke would find
another source of enjoyment in the poem, “Lalla Rookh,” by Irish poet Thomas
Moore, which became popular in London shortly after his departure. A few
years later, in 1821, Nicholas and his young wife, Alexandra Feodorovna, would
play the main roles in a dramatic adaptation of Lalla Rookh at the Prussian
Royal Court in Berlin. Nicholas wore an oriental costume that he had designed
himself.44 His love for masked balls and theatrical performances seems also to
shed light on his interest in Allan’s Haslan Gheray.
Finally, Nicholas was impressed by Allan’s ability to delineate with great
authenticity and accuracy “the manners, customs and appearance of his [i.e.,
Nicholas’s] countrymen.”45 One of the selected works, Bashkirs Conducting
Convicts, undoubtedly possessed that convincing touch found by his contem-
poraries both in Allan’s pictures and in his studio interior—“a complete fac-
simile of the barbaric magnificence […] of an eastern palace.”46 Where the
40 Ibid., 236.
41 Howard, William Allan, 48.
42 Lockhart, Peter’s Letters, 240, 242.
44 Vyskochkov, Nikolai I, 56.
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represented characters lacked this type of precision (for example, in Frontier

Guards), Allan’s masterly execution nevertheless made the painting look “true
in everything.”47 This attention to detail, particularly of a costume or a uni-
form, was believed by the grand duke to be the result of a great commitment to
work, always commendable in a painter.48
A skilled draughtsman, who had been nicknamed the “Scottish Raphael,”
Allan also showed Nicholas his extensive graphic portfolio.49 After a careful
examination, the visitor set aside for himself several drawings, as well as prepa-
ratory sketches for the pictures he had decided to acquire, displaying “no small
degree of taste and discrimination.”50 The Finance Report of the grand duke’s
journey mentions payment only for paintings, suggesting that at least some of
these graphic works were presented as a gift.51 Eleven of Allan’s drawings, held
in Russian state archives, were most likely among those brought by Nicholas
from his British tour.52 Ten of these are views of locations in Odessa and the
Crimea, drawn during the artist’s travels in 1808. Although rarely attempting
landscapes himself, Nicholas was happy to possess them as collector, possibly
as a memory of his own recent travels to these regions. The eleventh drawing,
however, is different; dated 1816, it is slightly smaller and apparently executed
more quickly. This depicts a Cossack in uniform, the subject the grand duke
himself had practised during the British tour.53 As Marina Sidorova convinc-
ingly suggests, this sketch was possibly done in Nicholas’s presence, by way
47 Ibid., 234, 244. See also Rebecchini, “An influential collector,” 46–47.
48 In Emperor Nicholas’s own words: “Ia rad podderzhivat’ talanty i den’gami, i otlichiiami,
tol’ko by trudilis’, a ne lenilis’.” See Viktoriia A. Kadochnikova, Proizvedeniia zhivopisi iz
lichnykh kollektsii imperatora Nikolaia I i imperatritsy Aleksandry Fëdorovny v sobranii
GRM. Kollektsii i kollektsionery. Sbornik statei po materialam nauchnoi konferentsii. XVI.
Gosudarstvennyi Russkii Muzei (St Petersburg: Palace Editions, 2009), 49.
49 Howard, William Allan, 37. In the early nineteenth century the comparison to Raphael
signalled the highest appreciation of the artist’s drawing skills. In St Petersburg the
title of “Russian Raphael” belonged to Aleksei Egorov, one of Nicholas’s drawing mas-
ters, whereas Benjamin West, whose works Nicholas saw in London, was known as the
“American Raphael.” See Kaylin H. Weber, “The studio and collection of the ‘American
Raphael’: Benjamin West, P.R.A. (1738–1820)” (Ph.D dissertation, University of Glasgow,
2002), 14, http://theses.gla.ac.uk/4307/, accessed August 20, 2019.
51 As noted by Marina Sidorova, the date of the visit to the painter’s studio coincided with
the date of Nicholas’s name day, perhaps providing an additional motive for the gift. See
Marina V. Sidorova, “‘Ego karandash perenosit nas snova v samoe serdtse Vostoka …’.
Risunki shotlandskogo khudozhnika Uiliama Allana v sobranii Gosudarstvennogo arkh-
iva Rossiiskoi Federatsii,” Rossiia–Vostok. Kontakt i konflikt mirovozzrenii. Sbornik nauch-
nykh statei, 2 vols (St Petersburg, GMZ “Tsarskoe Selo,” 2009), 2: 125–38.
52 GARF, f. 1463, op. 1, d. 1062; f. 728, op. 1, d. 1107. Ten of the drawings (landscapes) are pub-
lished in Sidorova, “Ego karandash.”
53 GARF, f. 728, op. 1, d. 1107, l. 12.
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268 Irina Marisina
Figure 10.7
William Allan, Portrait of Grand Duke
Nicholas of Russia, 1816, pencil on paper,
23 × 17.5 cm, private collection.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
of demonstrating Allan’s skills or as a quick tutorial in graphic technique.54

“Amazed” (the word used in Nicholas’s diary) by his host’s talent, the royal visi-
tor posed for him for a pencil portrait. This fine and rare surviving example
of Allan’s early portrait work (fig. 10.7), now held in a private collection in
Scotland, is another important record of the Edinburgh encounter.55
The Russian royal visit to Allan’s studio almost immediately became pub-
lic knowledge. It contributed to the artist’s reputation, and the sale of his
three pictures was duly mourned in the press; “Scotland has been deprived,”
reported The Scotsman.56 Shortly after Nicholas’s departure from Edinburgh
in January 1817, an exhibition of Allan’s works “together with a Collection of
Costume and Armour” opened in a private gallery.57 This was one of the first
54 Sidorova, “Ego karandash,” 129. According to the artist Fedor Solntsev, Nicholas’s drawings
showed a certain “technical skill” [teknicheskaia snorovka] and a lightness of execution.
See Vyskochkov, Nikolai I, 464.
55 For Nicholas’s description of his visit to Allan’s studio see: Journal, l. 48. For Nicholas’s
portrait see Elizaveta P. Renne, “Koronatsionnyi proekt gertsoga Devonshirskogo,” Nashe
nasledie, no. 55 (2000), http://www.nasledie-rus.ru/podshivka/5503.php, accessed
August 21, 2019; Howard, William Allan, 72.
56 The dispatch of the works to Russia was reported in The Scotsman, no. 1 (January 25, 1817),
with a reflection that “it is left to a foreign Prince to be most forward in affording encour-
agement to Mr. Allan.” See Howard, William Allan, 72.
57 Howard, William Allan, 49–50.
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private retrospectives of a living Scottish artist. The same year, as well as rep-
licating Haslan Gheray for the Earl of Wemyss and March, Allan published a
detailed literary commentary on the painting.58
When he met the grand duke, Allan was approaching a defining moment in
his artistic career: a transformation into a major figure of Scottish national his-
tory painting.59 In this, he had the blessing and encouragement of Walter Scott,
whom Nicholas also met in Edinburgh and who would become his favourite
writer. Although Allan’s first historical canvas was created only the year after
Nicholas’s departure, a visit by a member of the imperial family known for its
generous patronage of the arts may have smoothed his path to fame. In 1818
the painter and his pictures would be declared “one of the most interesting
subjects which can at the present time attract the attention of a traveller in
Scotland.”60
London, 1817: Benjamin Robert Haydon
Haydon, whom Nicholas met in London, was introduced to him as “a famous

history painter.” Of his own accord, the artist had embarked on a mission “to
raise Old England in Art” by restoring the prestige of the genre within the
British national school.61 However, the reason was not Haydon’s art but his
unrivalled knowledge of the Parthenon sculptures, recently acquired by the
British government from Lord Elgin, who had brought them from Athens. The
treasures were accommodated in a specially built temporary gallery (fig. 10.8),
58 William Allan, Haslan Gheray: A Narrative illustrative of the Subject of a Painting by

William Allan (Edinburgh: John Robertson, 1817).
59 Scott wrote an Ode, to music by Haydn, in honour of Nicholas, in which, interestingly,
he predicted the latter’s ascension to the Russian throne. See The poetical works of Sir
Walter Scott, Bart, Complete in one volume (Edinburgh: Robert Cadell, 1841), 656. See also
Vyskochkov, Nikolai I, 41.
61 Nicholas I, Journal, l. 105 ob.; Diary of B. R. H., 2: 89. In Haydon’s words, he was presented
to Nicholas as “Un peintre d’histoire distingué.” See Benjamin Robert Haydon, The
Autobiography and Journals of Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786–1846), ed. Malcolm Elwin
(London: Macdonald, 1950), 304. By the beginning of 1817 Haydon had received from the
British Institution a hundred-guinea prize for best history painting (in 1810) and had com-
pleted three major works: The Assassination of L. S. Dentatus (1809, location unknown),
Macbeth Before the Murder (1811, location unknown), and The Judgment of Solomon (1812–
14, Plymouth City Art Gallery and Museum). As Eric George puts it, the first was a partial
success, the second a disaster, and the third a triumph. See Eric George, The Life and Death
of Benjamin Robert Haydon, historical painter. 1786–1846 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967),
43, 49.
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270 Irina Marisina
not yet open to the public, in the British Museum. It was here on January 23,
1817—a day when the Museum was generally closed to the public—that
Haydon accompanied the grand duke as a chaperone on a private viewing of
the exhibition. In fact, Nicholas had visited the “Musée Britannique” on the
previous afternoon. According to his journal, this was when he first saw the
Parthenon marbles—“des fragments du plus fameux temple d’ellinisme à
Athéns,” which he considered to be a “collection du plus precieux et du plus
belle? qui existe.”62 Returning on January 23 for the “entire morning,” Nicholas
explored some other areas of the Museum.63
The suggestion to organise for the grand duke a special guided tour of the
marbles most likely came from Sauerweid.64 Working in London since 1814,
mainly for the British court, and exhibiting at the Royal Academy of Arts, he
could hardly have avoided hearing about Haydon—a rather outspoken figure
who was well-known in London’s artistic circles. With his own name some-
times appearing close to Haydon’s in the press, Sauerweid would undoubt-
edly have known of the latter’s expert knowledge of the marbles.65 Judging
from Haydon’s descriptions in his Diary and Autobiography, Sauerweid called
upon Haydon in advance to engage him as a guide for Nicholas’s visit, and
then picked him up on the morning of the viewing. At the time, Haydon was
working on the painting Christ’s Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem (1814–20, The
Athenaeum of Ohio, Mount St Mary’s Seminary, Cincinnati). He recounted: “As
Sauerweid admired my picture much, he said he would bring the Grand Duke
to see it, and to pave the way begged me to come to the British Museum the next
62 Nicholas I, Journal, l. 103.

63 On Nicholas’s visits to the British Museum, see: Nicholas I, Journal, ll. 102–05; Glinka,
Puteshestviia, 199. It is worth remembering that the grand duke saw the museum in its old
building, before its reconstruction in the 1820s–30s. In 1817 the Elgin Gallery, comprising
two rooms connected through an open doorway, was a large rectangular space with an
oriel at the end opposite the entrance, a pine floor, and blue painted walls. Lit from above
through windows in the roof, which itself was supported by a metal skeleton structure,
it acted as an extension, to the west, of the Townley Gallery, built in 1808 and containing
Egyptian, Roman, and Greek antiquities.
64 “Sauerweid me fait faire […] avec le fameux peintre.” Nicholas I, Journal, l. 105 ob. Haydon’s
name, unlike Allan’s, is not mentioned.
65 In the New Monthly Magazine, the list of works (which also included Sauerweid’s The
Battle of Waterloo) was followed by an article: “The Elgin Marbles – Mr. Haydon versus
Mr. Richard Payne Knight. Committee of the House of Commons on the same subject,
etc., etc.,” The New Monthly Magazine and Universal Register 5, no. 27 (January–June 1816):
247–49. This reflected a public argument, well known to contemporaries, in which Payne
Knight doubted the sculptures’ Greek origin and thus their value, and Haydon fervently
defended them and proclaimed their significance and uniqueness.
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day where the Duke was to be, when he would present me.”66 The arrangement
might have been a surprise for Nicholas. The artist Joseph Farington heard that
“Haydon was placed purposely, but as if accidently among the Marbles, & when
the Grand Duke came a Russian artist introduced Haydon to him.”67 Another
possible intermediary was Dr Joseph Hamel, “a very intelligent agent of the
Russian Government,” who had put together and handwritten the details of
Nicholas’s day-to-day London itinerary, and with whom Haydon later became
acquainted.68 But regardless of who fixed the arrangement, it proved to be a
perfect choice: as one of the first in London to see the Parthenon sculptures
upon their arrival from Greece, Haydon then studied these originals almost
religiously, drawing them repeatedly for long hours. He was even allowed the
rare chance to take casts of some pieces for his personal use.
To Haydon is owed the existence of a vivid and emotional eye-witness
report of the visit, including the contents of a short conversation between him
and the grand duke. According to this, Nicholas “lingered round the marbles,”
asking so many questions about them that by the end of the tour, having pro-
vided all the answers, the artist felt himself to be “a very great Personage” and
a “real official.”69 This feeling must have intensified when Nicholas inquired
about the public location of Haydon’s history paintings and expressed the wish
(“begged,” wrote Haydon) to see some of the artist’s drawings.70 Haydon’s men-
tion of an uncle of his “in the Russian Service,” whom Nicholas knew “inti-
mately,” seemed to dispose the grand duke even more warmly towards his
viewing companion.71 The latter speculated that he might have been offered
66 Diary of B. R. H., 90. Haydon, Autobiography, 303–04.

67 The Farington Diary by Joseph Farington, R.A., ed. J. Grieg, 8 vols (London: Hutchinson &
Co., 1922–28), 8: 109.
68 Haydon, Autobiography, 305. Joseph Christian Hamel (1788–1862), a Russian scientist and
inventor of German origin, accompanied both Nicholas and his brother Mikhail as an
advisor during their British travels.
69 Diary of B. R. H., 90; Haydon, Autobiography, 304. When comparing descriptions of the
same event in the Diary and Autobiography, it should be remembered that there was at
least twenty-five years’ interval between them.
70 Haydon gives two versions of his answer to the question: in the Diary he says, more dip-
lomatically, that his pictures are “chez un Monsieur in Hanover square,” whereas in the
Autobiography he openly tells the grand duke that, in Britain, history paintings are not
placed in public buildings. Diary of B. R. H., 89; Haydon, Autobiography, 304.
71 Thomas [Foma Aleksandrovich] Cobley (1761/1762–1833), his mother’s younger brother,
lived in Russia from the mid 1780s until his death, serving in the Russian army as
well in civil offices. He was Governor of Odessa (1814–15), where Nicholas stayed dur-
ing his Russian tour in summer 1816, and most likely came to know Cobley. The grand
duke allegedly told Haydon that he spent three weeks with Cobley in Odessa. Haydon,
Autobiography, 304.
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272 Irina Marisina
a place in the Royal Carriage and a possible further audience with Nicholas,
but for being “hurried away” by Sauerweid (mockingly referred to by Haydon
as “my Friend”). Haydon believed that his drawings from the marbles, which
he sent on for royal perusal, had come back without the recipient ever seeing
them. The artist recognised the knot he had made himself when wrapping the
parcel. Disappointed, he blamed Sauerweid for supposedly seeing in him an
“unsupportable rival,” and therefore preventing the grand duke’s further inter-
est in his work.72
It seems that Nicholas’s early reluctance as a pupil to draw from the antique
did not interfere with his perception of the marbles. In Haydon’s opinion, he
“really understood” and was “deeply impressed” with what he had seen, thus
showing a “sincere” and very good taste.73 The artist wrote of his happiness
that the viewing had taken place:
The honour paid to the marbles by this visit was glorious. […] A temporary build-
ing had been erected to shelter them, and I had accompanied the first visit of a
royal personage to works which I have studied when they were in a pent-house,
damp, dusty and obscure. Before the Duke came I gave three hearty cheers, and
taking off my hat thanked God inwardly I have lived to see that day.74
Nicholas’s expressed interest in the marbles was probably genuine; it seems

logical to assume that in his travels he had himself kept to the rule which he
had advised his brother Mikhail to follow during the latter’s stay in Britain
in summer 1818: “to be your own self; to see everything, anything you do not
fancy—simply stay silent about it, but whatever is good—praise it.”75 Further
evidence of Nicholas’s positive impressions can be found in the fact that back
in Russia he not only spoke about the Parthenon sculptures “with admiration”
to Aleksei Olenin, President of the Academy of Arts, but also presented Olenin
72 According to Haydon, Hamel had informed him of Sauerweid’s jealousy. Haydon,

Autobiography, 305.
73 Haydon recorded that the grand duke had particularly valued the Ilissus statue (ibid.,
304), although in the relevant Journal entry, Nicholas singled out the Theseus (known
now as Dionys). Journal, l. 103.
74 Haydon, Autobiography, 305; Diary of B. R. H., 2: 89.
75 “Byt’ samim soboi; vse videt’, chto ne polubitsia prosto molchat’, a chto khorosho, to
khvalit’” (Litvin and Sidorova, “Ty ko mne pisal …”). Unlike his elder brother, Mikhail vis-
ited Haydon’s studio in Hamel’s company. The artist later remembered that his guest was
talking to him (in French) as though to a “drill sergeant” and showed relative indifference
to the picture he came to see. This visit, probably undertaken on Nicholas’s advice, turned
into another missed opportunity for Haydon to secure Russian royal patronage (see Diary
of B. R. H., 3: 39).
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Figure 10.8 Charles Theodosius Heath, after Frederick Mackenzie, Elgin Gallery, Views of
London and its Environs, 1825, etching, published by Hurst, Robinson & Co.,
The British Museum, London.
© THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON / ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
with a book describing these “rare masterpieces.”76 Shortly afterwards, Olenin

contacted Haydon and asked him to arrange the making and sending of casts
of the marbles to Russia.77 That is how the artist gained what he called his
76 The entry in the Finance Report of January 29, 1817 records the payment of five pounds,
five shillings for the book on the Elgin marbles (“za knigu ‘Sur les marbres d’Elguin, in
4-o’”). See Glinka, Puteshestviia, 213. At around the same time, Nicholas acquired some
“pictures from the British museum” (possibly copies from the originals), which cost the
considerable sum of eighty-one pounds and eighteen shillings (around three thousand
pounds in today’s money), an amount which could have covered one twentieth of the
total construction cost of the Elgin Gallery. See ibid., 211.
77 Ekaterina M. Andreeva, K istorii postupleniia v kollektsiiu muzeia Akademii khudozhestv
gipsovykh slepkov s mramornykh pamiatnikov Parfenona. 240 let Muzeiu Akademii khu-
dozhestv. Nauchnaia konferentsiia 11–12 maia 1999 goda. Kratkoe soderzhanie dokla-
dov (St Petersburg: NIM R.A.Kh., 1999) 58–62; Irina M. Marisina, “B.R. Kheidon i
Sankt-Peterburgskaia Akademiia khudozhestv. Iz istorii russko-angliiskikh khu-
dozhestvennykh kontaktov pervoi treti XIX veka,” in Russkoe iskusstvo Novogo vremeni.
Issledovaniia i materialy. Sbornik statei. Vypusk 11, ed. Igor’ V. Riazantsev (Moscow:
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274 Irina Marisina
“singular bit of triumph,” proud that the honour was given to him and not to
a member of the Royal Academy, where he was no longer welcome.78 Upon
their arrival in St Petersburg the casts were placed in the Imperial Academy of
Arts, where they could be seen by artists, students, and the general public alike.
In 1818, as a sign of gratitude, the Imperial Academy granted Haydon honor-
ary membership. Sadly, this news only reached him five years later, within the
walls of the debtor’s prison where he now resided, and brought him none of
the financial benefits which he had badly needed during his career.79
Although he had supposedly asked after Haydon’s pictures, Nicholas was
not sufficiently curious to go and see them, despite the seemingly favourable
circumstances of their meeting and the existence of a chance Russian link.
Nor did the artist’s drawings from the marbles attract his attention, contrary
to his usual readiness to appreciate a good piece of graphic work.80 It can be
conjectured that antique sculpture was not among the grand duke’s preferred
subjects. A more cynical interpretation would point to the possible scheming
of Sauerweid, who was anxious to secure his own bond with Nicholas (which
he eventually did, becoming part of the grand duke’s—and consequently the
emperor’s—inner circle and keeping his position of drawing master both to
Nicholas and his children). Such a scenario is not beyond belief, but it is hard
to ignore the fact that in St Petersburg the German-born painter had a reputa-
tion for integrity, once stepping forward in front of the highly displeased tsar in
order to defend an unjustly accused artist.81 Some time after, expressing regret
as to the opportunity missed, Haydon reproached himself for taking on “an air
of active, healthy, independent swing” when talking “to Princes and such,” and
for being “so easily seen and so frank. […] The true way to have acted would
Pamiatniki istoricheskoi mysli 2008), 174–87; Irina M. Marisina, “Perepiska A.N. Olenina
s B.R. Kheidonom po povodu prisylki v Rossiiu gipsovykh kopii s mramorov Parfenona,”
in Russkoe iskusstvo Novogo vremeni. Issledovaniia i materialy. Sbornik statei. Vypusk 12, ed.
Igor’ V. Riazantsev (Moscow: Pamiatniki istorichestkoi mysli, 2009), 124–44.
78 Diary of B. R. H., 181.
79 Paul O’Keeffe. A Genius for Failure. The Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon (London: The
Bodley Head, 2009), 173.
80 Nicholas’s diaries (1821–25) include repeated entries about him “looking at engravings” or
“lithographed drawings,” often brought by his librarian and English teacher Karl Sedger, as
well as examining “charming” drawings such that of his wife’s carriage. He also regularly
met Sauerweid, taking lessons, showing him the drawings and talking about art (Zapisnye
knizhki, 41, 49, 51, 144).
81 A. T. von Grimm. Alexandra Feodorowna, Empress of Russia, trans. Lady Wallace, 2 vols
(Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1870), 1: 158, 294.
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have been to bow to my friend, get in by degrees under his protection, and then
oust him as I got strength.”82
Arriving at a definite conclusion would require more evidence, and not just
the word of a disillusioned artist seeking an explanation for the abrupt end of
his “Royal hopes & expectations.” The grand duke “promised to call & kept me
for two days in a fever of anxiety, starting at every knock, & never came!” wrote
Haydon in his diary four days after the meeting.83 Yet the reason for the lack of
further communication might have been as simple as “the perpetual pressure
on a Prince’s time,” because of which he, in Haydon’s words, “flew too quickly”
from one marble to another during the visit to the Elgin Gallery.84
Remembering Nicholas as “a very tall, graceful and fine young man, with
high-bred manners and a frank carriage,” with a “thundering” voice, Haydon,
unlike Allan, did not have the opportunity to draw a portrait.85 However, a
quick pencil sketch of a profile approximately two by three centimetres, not
intended for the public eye, was made on the day before Haydon’s visit by
a young artist who was studying from the Antique originals in the Townley
Gallery of the British Museum (fig. 10.9). According to a note from the museum
attendant John Conrath, who preserved the drawing, the sketch was made by
a “Master Hancock,” possibly Samuel Hancock (1800–active 1820);86 he was
admitted in July 1819 as a probationer to the Royal Academy schools but
82 Diary of B. R. H., 2: 909; 3: 39.

83 Diary of B. R. H., 2: 90. Later, in his Autobiography, he wrote that Nicholas’s supposed
intention to call was in fact the invention of Sauerweid, in order to keep Haydon from
contacting the grand duke. Haydon blamed himself for mentioning his uncle Cobley too
early, before he “had His Highness alone.” “Had I been quiet and allowed Sauerweid to
keep the lead as he desired, he would have brought me to the Grand Duke’s presence
again, and then my great reserve (my family connections) might and should have been
brought up at the proper time, when His Highness had got interested.” See Haydon,
Autobiography, 305.
84 Diary of B. R. H., 2: 88.
85 Ibid.; Haydon, Autobiography, 304.
86 The sketch is glued as a cutting in Conrath’s notebook. For nearly twenty years (1817–
35), Conrath recorded the names of those museum guests whom he thought important,
together with the dates of their visits. The entry from January 22, 1817 reads: “The Grand
Duke Nicholas examined the contents of the British Museum, in the company of Sir
William Congreve. And again the next day.” Conrath’s inscription underneath the stu-
dent portrait indicates that this is the “sketch of the Grand Duke Nicholas, brother to
the Emperor of Russia, taken at the British Museum by Master Hancock January 22nd,
1817” (Lieven Papers, Add MS 47237, f. 29). Also see Irina M. Marisina. “Imenityi Posetitel’
Britanskogo muzeia: K voprosu o prebyvanii velikogo kniazia Nikolaia Pavlovicha v
Londone v 1816–1817 godakh,” in Russkoe iskusstvo Novogo vremeni. Issledovaniia i mate-
rialy. Sbornik statei. Vypusk 15, ed. Igor’ V. Riazantsev (Moscow: Pamiatniki istoricheskoi
mysli, 2013), 80–99.
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276 Irina Marisina
seemingly never established himself as an artist.87 From a relatively inexpe-

rienced hand, the depiction is too simple and small to be seriously analysed
as a likeness, but it provides a visual record of Nicholas’s visit. Later, two of
Haydon’s students—the painters William Bewick (1795–1866) and Charles
Landseer (1799–1879)—were at the British Museum on the day in summer 1818
when Nicholas’s brother Mikhail visited the Elgin Gallery, again in Haydon’s
company. Both made portrait sketches of the Russian royal guest, which were
duly inserted in Conrath’s notebook.88
On February 3, 1817, less than two weeks after Nicholas’s viewing, the Gallery
was opened to the public. With Haydon stating that his presentation “had
made a great noise,” it is possible that it initiated a succession of future illus-
trious guests, British and European, who wished to see the Parthenon mar-
bles, as well as arousing public attention towards the display.89 In the ensuing
years this interest became so widespread that sometimes such visits were even
viewed with humour by British artists as a fashionable thing to do, as opposed
to being due to a genuine curiosity. Nevertheless, in 1844 “the Antiquities,
brought by Lord Elgin from the ruins of Parthenon” were still considered by a
Russian visitor—the historian and journalist Mikhail Pogodin—as “the most
remarkable” attraction one could find in the Museum.90
London, 1844: Emperor Nicholas I
In this same year, Nicholas, now emperor, returned to Britain, this time for a
very short visit (May 31–June 9), as back in St Petersburg his youngest daugh-
ter, Alexandra, was dying of acute tuberculosis. Shortly after this, Allan (now
President of the Scottish Academy of Arts) found himself in St Petersburg,
intending to carry out some research before undertaking a Russian royal
commission: a painting of Tsar Peter the Great Instructing His Subjects in the
87 Martin Myrone, “Supplementary Materials: Biographies of Students Admitted to Draw in

the Townley Gallery, British Museum, with Facsimiles of the Gallery Register Pages (1809–
1817),” 107, in Martin Myrone, “Drawing after the Antique at the British Museum: 1809–1917.
‘Free’ Art Education and the Advent of the Liberal State,” British Art Studies 5 (April 2017),
https://www.britishartstudies.ac.uk/media/_file/articles/facsimile-transcription-2.pdf,
88 Lieven Papers, Add MS 47237, ff. 30, 32; Marisina, “Imenityi Posetitel’,” 86–88.
89 Joseph Farington wrote about “puffing advertisments in the newspapers.” See Haydon,
Autobiography, 306; The Farington Diary, 8: 109.
90 “Ia bereg pokidal tumannyi Al’biona …” Russkie pisateli ob Anglii, 1646–1945, ed. Ol’ga
A. Kaznina and Aleksandr N. Nikoliukin (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2001), 192.
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Art of Shipbuilding.91 (Coincidentally, a similar subject was once rejected by

Reynolds, despite the advice of others, for a painting desired by Catherine
the Great.)92 Whether or not Nicholas knew anything of Allan’s history paint-
ings of after 1818, it seems likely that he was guided by memories of their first
encounter and the examples of Allan’s early work that he still owned and cher-
ished.93 For Nicholas the choice of subject reflected the deep respect he felt for
Peter, the first Russian emperor, whom he regarded as an exemplary ruler.94 A
German sculptor who had talked to Nicholas in the Dresden Picture Gallery
gained the impression that his interlocutor was sceptical about history paint-
ing, finding it mostly “decorative, stilted, fictitious and painted in the manner
of a courtesan.” But the emperor’s remarks on the style, colour, and subjects
of many famous paintings had rung surprisingly true.95 Imperial commissions
for history paintings placed, not always successfully, with foreign and Russian
artists (such as Aleksandr Briullov), manifested Nicholas’s state politics in rela-
tion to the arts. On the other hand, in purchasing from Allan in 1816, the grand
duke without doubt indulged his personal taste. This led him to see his private
apartments (e.g., those at the Anichkov Palace and Peterhof Cottage) adorned
predominantly not with history canvases, but with portraits, genre scenes,
91 Allan was still in Russia on August 17, meeting Nicholas at Peterhof on the subject of the
commission. (Howard, William Allan, 56). Upon its completion in 1845, the painting was
exhibited at the Royal Academy but passed unnoticed. Its current location is unknown.
The Exhibition of the Royal Academy 1845. The seventy-seventh (London: W. Clowes and
sons, 1845).
92 The subject—“Tsar Peter was receiving a ship-carpenter’s dress in exchange for his own,
to work in the dock [at Deptford]”—was suggested by Horace Walpole. See William
Roberts, Memoirs of the life and correspondence of Mrs Hannah More, 2 vols (New York:
Harper and Brothers, 1836), 1: 240; Renne, Britanskaia zhivopis’, 170–71 (cat. no. 97).
93 Evidence of Nicholas’s long-held affection towards Allan can be found in the words of his
son, Grand Duke Konstantin. In 1847, Konstantin visited Allan’s studio while travelling in
Britain, and noted that “Papa loves him very much. He has some very pretty pictures of
the Caucasus.” See Sidorova, “Risunki,” 137.
94 Another fact supports this theory: in 1840, while travelling within the country, Nicholas
had promoted a local Russian artist (Evgraf Sorokin, 1821–92), who had presented the
emperor with a painting of “Peter the Great, who, while attending a mass in a cathedral,
notices A. Matveev drawing his portrait and foresees in him a gifted painter” [Petr Velikii,
za obednei v sobore, zamechaet risuiushchego ego portret A. Matveeva i predugadyvaet v
nem darovitogo zhivopistsa]. See Arkhangel’skaia, Imperator Nikolai I, 19. Andrei Matveev
(1701–39) was the first Russian painter to be sent by Peter the Great to study abroad.
The selected episode, showing an act of imperial art patronage, may have responded to
Nicholas’s belief in a ruler’s responsibility to support national talent.
95 Vyskochkov, Nikolai I, 470.
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278 Irina Marisina
scenic views, and seascapes belonging to German and Russian artists, many of
whom were not necessarily well known.96
However, with regard to Haydon, there is no evidence that Nicholas’s second
trip to Britain had any direct bearing on the artist’s destiny. Haydon himself
came up with the idea of painting “the Emperor of Russia giving Court under
a Cedar Tree at Chiswick”—a reception given in the tsar’s honour at the Duke
of Devonshire’s villa. However, to his regret, he was not granted permission.97
“I am tormented with hypochondria & melancholy. The Emperor of Russia’s
arrival, to whom I was presented 28 years ago, & the humiliation I have under-
gone since I saw him, are literally shocking,” reads an entry in his Diary dated
two days after Nicholas’s arrival.98 Two years later in 1846, still struggling to
fulfil his high aspirations and support his large family, Haydon tragically took
his own life in his studio, in front of an unfinished picture. However tempting
it is to speculate on the fairy-tale possibility of the fate of a gifted artist with
“an antique head” being changed back in 1816 by the magnanimous hand of a
Russian royal with “a beautiful grecian profile,” the reality was different.99
After receiving Emperor Nicholas in London in 1844, Queen Victoria wrote:
“the arts and all softer occupations he is insensible to […]” (although she did
note his interest in her daughter’s drawing).100 However, the engagement of the
grand duke with artists during his first British tour seems to prove otherwise.
The three paintings purchased from Allan as a result of the grand duke’s visit to
96 Nicholas also had a vast collection of erotic drawings kept in his “secret library.” See
Leonid V. Vyskochkov and Alla A. Shelaeva, “‘Iziashchnye khudozhestva dostoiny
monarshego pokrovitel’stva …’: Imperator Nikolai I i russkie khudozhniki,” Iaroslavskii
pedagogicheskii vestnik. Vypusk 3 (2016), https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/izyaschnye-
hudozhestva-dostoyny-monarshego-pokrovitelstva-imperator-nikolay-i-i-russkie-
hudozhniki, accessed July 18, 2019.
97 Diary of B. R. H., 5: 369–70. Haydon believed it to be the most “poetical” thing, con-
nected with royalty, that had ever happened. A picture representing Emperor Nicholas’s
departure from London was painted by the young British artist H. F. Bakes and sent to
St Petersburg in 1845. Oksana E. Kaiander, “Siia vaza naznachaetsia v podarok angliiskoi
koroleve,” in Kuchumovskie chteniia. Sbornik dokladov nauchnoi konferentsii. Atributsiia,
istoriia i sud’ba predmetov iz muzeinykh kollektsii (St Petersburg: GMZ “Pavlovsk,” 2018),
102.
98 Diary of B. R. H., 5: 368.
99 Haydon was praised by his contemporaries for having “an antique head” (George, The
Life and Death, 35). “A beautiful grecian profile” was Queen Victoria’s observation about
Emperor Nicholas, written in her Journal on June 2, 1844. See: The Royal Archives. Queen
Victoria’s Journals. RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W), June 2, 1844 (Queen Victoria’s Drafts), http://
www.queenvictoriasjournals.org/search/displayItem.do?FormatType=fulltextimgsrc&&
QueryType=articles&ResultsID=3245112908927&ItemID=qvj04262&ItemNumber=1&Pag
eNumber=1&volumeType=DRAFT, accessed June 1, 2021.
100 The Letters of Queen Victoria. A selection from Her Majesty’s Correspondence between the
years of 1837 and 1861, 3 vols (London: John Murray, 1908), 2: 14.
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Figure 10.9 A page from John Conrath’s autograph notebook with portrait sketches of
Nicholas (possibly by S. Hancock), his brother Mikhail (by Ch. Landseer), and
a member of Mikhail’s entourage (by W. Bewick), 1817–18, The British Library,
Department of Manuscripts, Add. MS 58207, 1815–1835, ff. 29–32.
© THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD
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280 Irina Marisina
the artist’s studio in December 1816 were arguably Nicholas’s most significant
acquisition of art throughout the entire voyage. The selected works became
his firm favourites, remaining in the study of the Anichkov Palace, the grand
duke’s most loved St Petersburg home, for the rest of his life, and inspiring his
children in their own drawing activities.101 The qualities he loved in Allan’s pic-
tures, including their emotional richness and attention to detail evidencing a
painter’s “laborious diligence,” continued to be important criteria of Nicholas’s
artistic judgment in his later years.102
The interest in Allan’s drawings—views of places where the grand duke had
travelled just before coming to Britain—revealed another characteristic fea-
ture of his approach as private collector: the habit to buy works of art which
invoked certain personal reminiscences, their artistic value not being a pri-
ority. Allan’s graphical works judiciously combined sentimental and aesthetic
qualities, the presence of imaginative poetry and real-life clarity, responding
to two contrasting aspects of their new owner’s character. The pleasure which
Nicholas as emperor would find in receiving drawings as a gift (as well as giv-
ing them to others and decorating his private rooms with them) may well have
been strengthened by his Edinburgh experience. Likewise, the practice of
acquiring the creations of a living artist straight from his studio, so successfully
begun during the encounter with Allan, became habitual in future years, sup-
porting the future monarch’s unfading interest in contemporary art (especially
sculpture), both Russian and European.103 During Nicholas’s reign, Russian
diplomats received orders to include in their reports an overview of the cur-
rent state of arts in the countries to which they were posted.104
The encounter with Haydon, enhanced by the artist’s acknowledged gift
for lecturing and brilliant conversation, showed another side to Nicholas.105
His question—in what public building could Haydon’s works be viewed—
indicated his early awareness of the public mission of art, and national history
101 Rebecchini, “An influential collector,” 47; Damiano Rebekkini [Rebecchini], “Esteticheskie
vkusy imperatora Nikolaia I: ital’ianskaia i nemetskaia zhivopis’,” Obrazy Italii v russkoi
slovesnosti XVIII–XX vv. Sbornik statei, ed. Ol’ga B. Lebedeva and Nina E. Mednis (Tomsk:
Izdatel’stvo Tomskogo universiteta, 2009), 329, 351.
102 Nicholas would have found plenty of this in Haydon, had he come to the painter’s studio
in 1817: the artist worked devotedly for many hours a day, sometimes without food or
sleep.
103 See Elena I. Karcheva and Sergei O. Androsov, “Nikolai I i kollektsiia sovremennoi skulp-
tury v Imperatorskom Ermitazhe,” in Omaggio al nuovo Ermitage. Massimo Bertozzi
(Massa: Società Editrice Apuana, 1998), 176–87, exhibition catalogue; Kadochnikova,
Proizvedeniia zhivopisi, 81–89; Rebekkini, “Esteticheskie vkusy.”
104 Vyskochkov and Shelaeva, “Iziashchnye khudozhestva.”
105 As Eric George has noted, Haydon’s conversation was “brilliant, witty, graphic, and wide in
the range of its subjects.” See George, The Life and Death, 6.
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painting in particular. The fact that he was examining what was soon to become
another publicly accessible antique sculpture gallery of the British Museum
may have proved inspirational when he was involved in the creation of St
Petersburg’s New Hermitage, with its National Picture Gallery and a selection
of classical sculptures, both originals and replicas.106 In 1845 Nicholas received
the permission of Pope Gregory XVI, rarely granted at that time, to make casts
from original statues in the Vatican Gallery. His acquisitions were the first sub-
stantial purchases of antique sculpture by a Russian monarch since the time
of Catherine the Great.107
Allan and Haydon briefly met in London at the very start of their artistic
careers, evidently before Allan’s departure for Russia.108 Their lives afterwards
were very different, as were the outcomes of their encounters with Russian roy-
alty. Whether or not their paths crossed again, the words Haydon much later
wrote in his Autobiography, recalling his travel to Paris in 1814, indicate his
likely awareness of Allan’s success. “It will hardly be believed by artists that we
often forgot the great works in the Louvre in the scenes around us, and found
Russians and Bashkirs from Tartary more attractive than the Transfiguration.”109
The royal “gold dust” to which Haydon refers in the opening epithet to this
chapter settled on Allan’s shoulders, securing Nicholas’s life-long affection for
his works, and bringing the artist a Russian royal commission nearly thirty
years after their meeting. Meanwhile for Haydon, who was hoping to attract
(and was very much capable of attracting) a beautiful “royal butterfly,” things
did not work out; the ephemeral creature fluttered its silvery wings over his
head, but sadly cast no silky down on his forefinger.
106 Militsa Korshunova, “Novyi Ermitazh i ego pervaia ekspositsiia,” Nashe nasledie, no. 66
(2003), http://nasledie-rus.ru/podshivka/6605.php, accessed September 17, 2019; Nikolai I
i Novyi Ermitazh. Katalog vystavki 19 fevralia–12 maia 2002 goda, ed. Mikhail B. Piotrovskii
(St Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha, 2002).
107 Nashchokina, Antichnoe nasledie, 251. Nicholas was sometimes identified with Hadrian,
the Roman emperor known for his fascination with Greek art. However, Greek mythol-
ogy had been rejected by Maria Feodorovna as a subject for her son’s early education.
Nicholas’s interest in classical archaeology and in the preservation of ancient monu-
ments began during his 1816 travels in Novorossiya [a region of the former Russian
Empire, north of the Black Sea and now part of Russia, Ukraine, and Transnistria]. See
Leonid V. Vyskochkov, “Magistra Vitae Imperatora Nikolaia I,” Drevniaia Rus’: vo vremeni, v
lichnostiakh, v ideakh. Vypusk 7 (2017): 317–33, https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/magistra-
vitae-imperatora-nikolaya-i, accessed April 20, 2020.
108 George, The Life and Death, 26. Allan resided in London in 1803–05. See Howard, William
Allan, 44.
109 Haydon, Autobiography, 210. Most likely, Haydon meant the “Transfiguration” by Raphael
(1516–20, Pinacoteca Vaticana) brought by Napoleon from Italy and exhibited until 1815 in
the Louvre where Haydon was able to see it.
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282 Irina Marisina
Nicholas’s encounters with Allan and Haydon contributed not only to his
own artistic experience but also to British-Russian artistic diplomacy. Although
his preferences for foreign art leaned mostly toward German and Italian art-
ists, Allan remained Nicholas’s favoured British artist.110 If Haydon did not gain
such favour, he nevertheless directed Nicholas towards the path of enriching
the publicly accessible treasures of the Imperial Academy in St Petersburg.111
The grand duke’s attitude towards “smart travels” was summed up in the advice
he gave in 1838 to his son and heir Alexander (the future Alexander II), who
was about to visit Britain as part of his first European trip:
You will step out in the foreign World with […] the purpose […] to discover and
to stock up on impressions […] penetrating, familiarising yourself and then com-
paring, you will see and learn much that is useful and often precious to you to
build up a store for possible replication.112
For Nicholas himself the British tour of 1816–17 had been a vital ‘moulding’
stage, shaping his mind and soul. In line with Dashkova’s vision of the enlight-
ened traveller who always keeps “eyes and ears open,” the “stock of impres-
sions” that he assembled during this voyage were diverse enough to serve him
well throughout his life, both as a private person and a reigning monarch.
Bibliography
Archives
Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii [State Archive of the
Russian Federation] (“GARF”)
GARF, f. 1463, op. 1, d. 1062. William Allan. Drawings.
GARF, f. 728, op. 1, d. 1107. Drawings by Grand Dukes Nicholas Pavlovich and Mikhail
Pavlovich, Sauerweid, Ephimovich, Allan, and others.
110 On the artistic taste and collecting preferences of Emperor Nicholas I, see Rebekkini.
Esteticheskie vkusy, 325–55, and Rebecchini, “An influential collector,” 45–67.
111 Some of the casts sourced by Haydon for the Academy can still be seen in the collection
of its museum in St Petersburg.
112 “Ty pokazhesh’sia v Svet chuzhezemnyi, s […] tseliiu […] uznat’ i zapastis’ vpechatleni-
iami […] vnikaia, znakomias’ i potom sravnivaia, ty mnogo uvidish’ i uznaesh’ poleznogo,
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Chapter 11
Tsar Alexander I, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and

George Dawe: Masculinity and the Development
of the St Petersburg Military Gallery
Allison Leigh
We have never lacked for accounts of the roles that men have played through-
out history in the arenas of diplomacy and statecraft. In fact, their endeav-
ours in these sectors have long predominated narratives of the past, to such
an extent that few scholars have examined the nuances of how men learned
to fulfil these positions and the ways that their manhood was entrenched in
their ability to manoeuvre within them. The last three decades, however, have
seen an increased tendency to study men not only in terms of their participa-
tion in politics and warfare but as gendered beings, exploring what the anthro-
pologist David Gilmore has called “the ideology of masculinity” by turning to
spheres outside of men’s highly visible public responsibilities.1 Despite this
new focus, few scholars have drawn together the history of affairs of state with
the conditions that produced men’s responsibilities within this sector. How
might joining the two alter our understanding of the conditions that produced
various codes for masculinity across time and place? Are there cultural sectors
that might provide insight into the overlap between the dominant dialogues
about gender found within histories of diplomacy and the conflicts inherent
within them? And, more specifically, what might investigating how ideal forms
of masculinity were expressed in two cultures experiencing profound cross-
cultural exchange in the first decades of the nineteenth century tell us about
the nature of gender and power relations in this moment?
To answer such questions, this chapter investigates the origins of an excep-
tional monument made by the English artist George Dawe (1781–1829) for the
Russian tsars Alexander I and Nicholas I between 1819 and 1828 (fig. 11.1). The
Military Gallery, as it came to be known, was comprised of three hundred
and twenty-nine half-length representations of generals and seven full-length
1 David D. Gilmore, Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (New Haven, CT
and London: Yale University Press, 1990), 1.

THE ST PETERSBURG MILITARY GALLERY 289
portraits of commanders, all of whom fought in the campaigns against

Napoleon.2 The conception of this portrait gallery by Alexander I provides a
singular opportunity to assess conceptualisations of masculinity as they were
transmitted between cultures in the first half of the nineteenth century, and
also allows for an evaluation of the ways diplomacy interacted with portrai-
ture to produce idealised male servitors across national lines. For the British
commenced a parallel artistic venture during the same period, the Waterloo
Chamber in Windsor Castle, which featured twenty-eight portraits of the main
commanders, diplomats, and monarchs who had formed an alliance to defeat
Napoleon (fig. 11.2). Both ventures projected the kind of power then associ-
ated with these nations but, fascinatingly, the Russian iteration had its very
origin in a political environment. It had been conceived by the tsar during a
diplomatic congress which saw the gathering of monarchs to discuss the new
Europe which would arise in the wake of Napoleon’s defeat.
Few artistic projects capture on such a monumental scale the prevailing dia-
logues about gender and their intersection with matters of state. Both Dawe’s
paintings for the Russian tsars and those made by his compatriot, Sir Thomas
Lawrence (1769–1830), for King George IV, demonstrate how men’s bodies
could be co-opted as emblems of state power and made to serve as symbolisa-
tions for a kind of normative masculinity then prevalent in both countries.
Investigating the important depictions that Lawrence and Dawe each made
of Alexander I, and the role that these portraits played in the development of
the Military Gallery, allows for a reassessment of how patriarchal exercises of
authority such as diplomacy interacted with cultural forms like portraiture to
produce ideal gendered citizens in the period.
The Origins of the Military Gallery: “Everything English is the

Mode Here”
To understand how this project came about, we must first assess its origins
in diplomatic affairs of state. Dawe was ultimately to win the commission to
paint the Military Gallery because he was present during the important politi-
cal exchange which occurred after Napoleon’s defeat. According to Elizaveta
Renne:
2 The total number of portraits is described in Elizaveta Renne, State Hermitage Museum
Catalogue: Sixteenth- to Nineteenth-Century British Painting (St Petersburg: State Hermitage
Museum, 2011), 269.
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290 Allison Leigh
Figure 11.1 Grigorii Chernetsov, Perspective View of the War Gallery of 1812 in the Winter Palace,
1829, oil on canvas, 121 cm × 92 cm, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
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Figure 11.2 Joseph Nash, Windsor Castle: The Waterloo Chamber, June 5, 1844, 1844, watercolour
and bodycolour over pencil, 28.2 cm × 36.8 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
In the autumn of 1818 the crowned heads and dignitaries of Russia, Britain,
Austria, and Prussia gathered together in the small German town of Aachen for
the first congress of the Holy Alliance, to discuss the many political matters and
the question of the balance of power in post-Napoleonic Europe. […] Dawe had
come to the small town, then bustling with dignitaries attending the congress, in
search of new patrons and new commissions.3
Dawe was not the only artist savvy enough to be present at foreign policy events
like this one. Sir Thomas Lawrence, who had already received a knighthood for
his talents as a portraitist three years before, was also in Aachen at this same
historical moment. He was there to paint a portrait of Alexander I that had
been commissioned by the Prince Regent, the future George IV, for the newly
conceived Waterloo Chamber.4 Several scholars have suggested that it was
knowledge of this portrait gallery that gave Alexander the idea to commemorate
3 Renne, State Hermitage Museum Catalogue, 269–70.

4 For more on the tsar’s sittings for Lawrence, see Michael Levey, Sir Thomas Lawrence (New
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005), 208–11.
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292 Allison Leigh
the victory over Napoleon through a series of commissioned portraits to be

hung together within the space of his own royal residence.5 The Military
Gallery is significantly different from its British counterpart, however, in that
it specifically commemorates the army and its generals on a grand scale. The
Waterloo Chamber, on the other hand, focused quite narrowly on strategically
chosen monarchs, church leaders, and military commanders; Alexander was
determined to recognise and commemorate the army itself as a sign of Russia’s
power and invincibility.6
A broader Russian interest in British art also characterised this period and
likely played a further role in the tsar’s formulation of the gallery. As Renne
discusses in her chapter in this volume, British portraiture had begun to be
seen as part of a significant school of painting when interest in the work of
Joshua Reynolds rose in the 1770s. Reynolds, then serving as the first president
of the Royal Academy of Arts, was commissioned to paint two large histori-
cal canvases for Catherine the Great between 1786 and 1789.7 The project had
solidified the sense among the Russian aristocratic community that there was
a definitive “English style.” It also raised interest within these groups in collect-
ing pictures of this type.8
In her work on Russian reactions to British art in the period, Galina Andreeva
describes the significance of such understandings of anglophone culture:
5 See: Galina Andreeva, “The Military Gallery in the Winter Palace (The Hermitage):
International Aspects of the National Memorial,” in Memory and Oblivion: Proceedings of
the XXIX International Congress of the History of Art, ed. Adriaan Wessel Reinink and Jeroen
Stumpel (Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999), 151; Renne, State Hermitage
Museum Catalogue, 270.
6 The Military Gallery is also larger in length at 180 feet compared to the Waterloo Chamber’s
100 feet. It is slightly problematic, however, to compare the two in this regard because the
gallery in St Petersburg has changed in scale over time, due to a fire in 1837 and various later
restoration projects. Repairs were made to the gallery’s roof in the 1960s and then a major
reconstruction of the roof and skylights was completed in January 2001. A further restora-
tion to strengthen the plaster and clean the paint was then made to return the vaults as
much as possible to their original appearance. See “Presentation of completed restorations in
the Winter Palace to journalists,” State Hermitage Museum, published July 28, 2004, https://
www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/news/, accessed November 14, 2019.
7 See Chapter 3 of this volume.
8 Rosalind P. Blakesley, “Slavs, Brits and the Question of National Identity in Art: Russian
Responses to British Painting in the Mid-Nineteenth Century,” in English Accents: Interactions
with British Art c. 1776–1855, ed. Christiana Payne and William Vaughan (Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, 2004), 204. On Russian collecting practices and the influence of British culture on
the Russian court, see the essays in British Art Treasures from Russian Imperial Collections in
the Hermitage, ed. Brian Allen and Larissa Dukelskaya (New Haven, CT and London: Yale
Center for British Art, 1996), exhibition catalogue.
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Increased awareness of British culture in Russia produced a widespread percep-

tion, from the middle of the eighteenth century, of ‘Englishness’. This included
concepts such as ‘English lifestyle’, ‘English state structures’, ‘English political
economics’, ‘English moral philosophy’, ‘the English novel’, ‘English humour’, ‘an
English gentleman’ (a model of education and morality, described in Letters to
my Son by Lord Chesterfield, which was popular in Russia), ‘the English tourist’
(an expert and inquisitive traveler), ‘the English dandy’, ‘the English portrait’ and
English silver and Wedgwood china.9
Notable is the intersection of categories delineated in terms of their

“Englishness”—all of which cut rapidly across political, cultural, and gender
lines. It becomes apparent from this list that in Russia at the turn of the nine-
teenth century one could speak not only of the singular character of “English
political economics” and “English state structures,” but also the qualities which
defined the “English gentleman” and his counterpart, “the English dandy.” And
all of these traits might potentially be contained in an “English portrait” or
“English novel,” if one so chose to assess the signs.
Such interest in all things English would only increase in the 1790s, as part
of a general response to the French Revolution and the turn away from French
culture which resulted.10 Contemporaries began to observe the effect that this
was having on Russian society: “now men and women are trying as hard as pos-
sible to take on everything English: English things now appear good, delight-
ful, and admirable […] everything English is the mode here.”11 At the same
time, the two leading British painters working in Russia—Richard Brompton
(1734–83) and George Dawe—would come to influence styles of portraiture in
particular. Brompton, the earlier arrival, worked as Catherine’s court portrait-
ist from 1780 to 1783. He painted several pictures of the grand princes and also
began a portrait of the empress herself.12 According to his contemporary, the
painter Edward Edwards, Brompton’s work was “well received” among both
aristocratic and artistic communities, but his personal life proved something
of an impediment. Edwards tells us that the artist’s “silly vanity led him into a
pompous style of living” and he died in St Petersburg shortly thereafter.13
9 Galina Andreeva, “‘Everything English is the mode here’: Russian reactions to British
painting in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,” in Payne and Vaughan,
English Accents, 55.
10 Ibid., 59.
11 “Angliiskaia progulka” (1772), Zhivopisets. Quoted in ibid., 55.
12 Ibid., 58.
13 Edward Edwards, Anecdotes of painters, who have resided or been born in England: with
critical remarks on their productions (London: Leigh and Sotheby, 1808), 174–75.
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294 Allison Leigh
All of this would pave the way for Dawe’s later arrival in 1819, but even sig-
nificantly earlier, when Alexander came to power in 1801, Anglophilia was at
an all-time high within Russia’s elite society. Alexander had himself received
a moralizing education based on philosophical and political ideals held in
the west and, while the English example was then not the foremost model
for raising elite young men, it was part of a larger pan-European system of
Enlightenment thought that shaped both his later rule and his masculine iden-
tity. Thus, a mix of European influences characterised the future sovereign’s
upbringing and sometimes also presented him with conflicting archetypes for
male behaviour and the power contained within it. Layers of influence came to
shape both monarchical conduct and that of aristocratic men more generally
as Russia grappled with foreign stimuli. Such negotiations affected norms of
masculinity which were deeply related to the dynamics and imagery of power.
In the case of Alexander, this meant navigating a range of expectations
which stemmed from various texts, several family members, and even differ-
ent physical locations. Removed from his father by Catherine, Alexander was
initially put into the care of tutors who emphasised duty, meekness, and self-
restraint as the ideals for a male ruler.14 The heir to the throne was encouraged
“to learn to be a new kind of man, not the kind he saw around him in the
court.”15 Literary works such as François Fénelon’s Les aventures de Télémaque,
fils d’Ulysse (first published in 1699) were used to help build Alexander’s sense
of what it meant to be this kind of honourable prince. Fénelon’s text appeared
in translation in several editions in eighteenth-century Russia and had also
been an instant sensation in England; the first translation of the work was
published in London just months after the original appeared in French.16 It
ultimately went through six editions in the next seven years and became so
popular that it was the object of competition between rival translators.17
Les aventures de Télémaque seems to have been particularly important to
Catherine. She gave Alexander a copy, in which she expressed her hope that
he would become “a great person, a hero,” and she advised him to “be mild,
14 Richard Wortman, “Images of Rule and Problems of Gender in the Upbringing of Paul I
and Alexander I,” in Imperial Russia 1700–1917: State, Society, Opposition: Essays in Honor
of Marc Raeff, ed. Ezra Mendelsohn and Marshall S. Shatz (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois
University Press, 1988), 59.
15 Wortman, “Images of Rule,” 60.
16 Doohwan Ahn, “From Idomeneus to Protesilaus: Fénelon in Early Hanoverian Britain,”
in Fénelon in the Enlightenment: Traditions, Adaptations, and Variations, ed. Christoph
Schmitt-Maaß, Stefanie Stockhorst, and Doohwan Ahn (Amsterdam and New York:
Rodopi, 2014), 102, https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401210645_007.
17 Ahn, “From Idomeneus to Protesilaus,” 108.
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humane, accessible, compassionate, and liberal.”18 Beyond these ideals, the

book was also seen at the time as an especially vital model for how future male
rulers should conduct themselves in matters of love and sexuality. It empha-
sised that romantic love was dangerous for a male monarch and that, ulti-
mately, sexual impulses should be denied, even if this meant becoming less
masculine. One’s devotion must always be towards the people under one’s rule.
In addition to the important role such texts played in Alexander’s upbring-
ing, the future tsar was attended to by a number of English governesses from
a young age. But his main tutor was the Swiss republican, Frédéric-César
Laharpe, who tried to instil in his young charge the belief that his duty was to
engage in diligent work and evade traditional models of masculine conduct.
He advised the heir “to be grave, severe, a friend of order, inaccessible to petty
considerations, undaunted in his determination, the man of the entire nation
and not that of the ministers or courtesans”—somewhat different from the
ideals of mildness and compassion espoused by Catherine.19 Given the diver-
gent advice of Laharpe, the empress, and what he found in literary works, it
perhaps comes as no surprise that it was difficult for Alexander to balance all
these qualities. His letters to Laharpe as a teenager reveal that Alexander fre-
quently criticised himself for failing to live up to all these standards: “Instead
of urging myself on and doubling my efforts […] each day I become more non-
chalant, more remiss, more incapable […]. At thirteen, I am the same child I
was at eight, and the more I advance in age the closer I come to nil.”20
Ambivalent Masculinity: “The Qualities of a Man and the

Weaknesses of a Woman”
Matters were further complicated by the fact that the enlightened education of
Laharpe and the influence of Catherine were not the only stimuli for the young
future sovereign. Alexander was also exposed from an early age to the ideals of
soldierly discipline from visits to his father’s military camp at Gatchina.21 In

19 See Frédéric-César Laharpe’s unpublished “Memoire sur l’instruction publique et législa-
tion relativement à la Russie, St. Petersbourg, 16 Octobre 1801,” 28, Armfeltska Arkivet,
State Archives, Helsinki, Finland. Quoted in Elmo E. Roach, “The Origins of Alexander I’s
Unofficial Committee,” The Russian Review 28, no. 3 (July 1969): 315–26 (325).
20 Jean Charles Biaudet and Françoise Nicod, Correspondance de Frédéric de la Harpe at
Alexandre Ier (Neuchâtel: 1978), 73–74. Quoted in Wortman, “Images of Rule,” 69.
21 Alexis S. Troubetzkoy, Imperial Legend: The Mysterious Disappearance of Tsar Alexander I
(New York: Arcade Publishing, 2002), 63.
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296 Allison Leigh
Figure 11.3
Fedor Rokotov, Portrait of Grand Duke
Alexander Pavlovich as a Child, beginning
of the 1780s, oil on canvas, State Historical
Museum, Moscow.
MOSCOW
this setting, he became fascinated by the restraint and regulation of officers

and the spectacle of military drills. Portraits made of the future sovereign in
his childhood attest to this mix of values. A canvas painted by Fedor Rokotov
at some time in the early 1780s, likely when Alexander was only five or six years
old, shows the prince gazing warmly at the viewer (fig. 11.3). His fair hair and
piercing blue eyes are complemented by the ivory silk of his tunic and the icy
blue of the sash which adorns it. The luxuriousness of his dress—note the
three rows of thick lace which embellish each arm and the child-size sparkling
epaulette—indicates his royal station. The formality of such regal costume is
counteracted somewhat by the cordiality of his pose. With his body facing the
viewer, Alexander seems to be shifting his weight to his right side as he opens
his left arm out in a gesture of comfortable amiability.
The portrait shows the influence of the European system of courtly por-
traiture for young men which had been developed by Sir Godfrey Kneller a
century before (fig. 11.4). Kneller had been born in Germany but came to be the
leading portrait painter in England by the outset of the eighteenth century. He
long espoused the importance of appearances for his male sitters and made
popular a style of portraiture which showed the “male subject engaged in a
theatrical and implicitly public display of good breeding.”22 In his portrait of
22 David H. Solkin, “Great Pictures or Great Men? Reynolds, Male Portraiture and the Power
of Art,” Oxford Art Journal 9, no. 2 (1986): 42.
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Figure 11.4
Sir Godfrey Kneller, William, Duke of
Gloucester (1689–1700), 1699, oil on
canvas, 76 × 64 cm, Royal Collection
Trust, London.
the Duke of Gloucester at the age of ten, one sees the kind of haughty social
control and world of appearances in which Kneller specialised. As in Rokotov’s
portrait of Alexander, this pictorial code of display is mixed with attributes of
strength and militarism. Where Alexander holds what appears to be the barrel
of a gun in his small right hand, William wears a breastplate over a luxuri-
ous creamy shirt—both details serving to highlight the role the future leaders
would take in warfare and statecraft. Rokotov’s portrait emphasises this aspect
of the prospective tsar’s upbringing, showing him as learning to be something
other than the mild and humane ruler that Catherine hoped he would be.
In the structured and martial atmosphere of Gatchina, Alexander would
learn to be yet another kind of man—the severe and demanding commander.
He spent hours drilling soldiers, insisting on precision, and obsessing over
details of appearance among the troops.23 Later, as ruler, Alexander would
remain committed to the formation of ideal soldiers and officers for the rest of
his life. Through the foundation of military colonies and his expansion of the
university system, he, and to an even greater extent his successor, Nicholas I,
took a serious interest in the shaping of Russia’s male servitors. But, as was
the case with Alexander’s education, the upbringing of elite citizens was often
characterised by contradictory models for the kind of men they were expected
to become. All of this had a significant impact on Alexander. Unable to live up
to either the role of dominating monarch or Catherine’s ideal of a benevolent
23 Troubetzkoy, Imperial Legend, 63.
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298 Allison Leigh
sovereign, he became a moody and indecisive man. Aside from his victory over
Napoleon, Alexander proved largely hesitant and unpredictable. Despite early
intentions to abolish autocracy and serfdom, he never carried out such major
reforms.24 It seems that the differing models for masculine rule that comprised
his early education resulted in a deeply incongruous nature.
Foreign observers would also come to note what they perceived to be these
inconsistencies in his personality. Napoleon called him “a cunning Byzantine,”
adding that “something is missing in his character, but I find it impossi-
ble to discover what it is.”25 The French diplomat and writer François-René
de Chateaubriand thought that Alexander “had a strong soul and a weak
character.”26 Other commentators saw this combination of opposing traits as
more significantly gendered. The Austrian diplomat Klemens von Metternich
described him as possessing “a strange mix of the qualities of a man and the
weaknesses of a woman.”27 And Count Auguste de Ferronays, the French
ambassador to Russia between 1819 and 1827, declared that: “If Alexander were
to be dressed in female clothes, he would have made a shrewd woman.”28 All
of this was deeply problematic. To foreign observers, a male ruler who dem-
onstrated ambivalence in his personality damaged the dignity of his gender
in profound ways. The monarch was to be the epitome of masculine presence
in the world. Conflicted, Alexander I was instead renowned for attributes
then considered feminine and was increasingly plagued by restlessness and
changeability.29
24 It should also be noted that Alexander’s rule began under difficult circumstances in 1801
after the short and unpredictable reign of his father Paul I, who had been murdered in a
palace coup organised by some of his most trusted associates. The early years of his reign
saw the formation of the so-called Unofficial Committee [Neofitsial’nyi komitet], a group
of young, well-educated, and liberal men with whom Alexander met frequently, often
over coffee or brandy after leisurely dinners. Notes from these meetings show his early
intention to abolish autocracy and serfdom. See Troubetzkoy, Imperial Legend, 79. On the
coup, see David Saunders, Russia in the Age of Reaction and Reform 1801–1881 (London:
Longman, 1992), 8–10.
25 Quoted in Troubetzkoy, Imperial Legend, 65.
26 Quoted in ibid.
28 Quoted in Troubetzkoy, Imperial Legend, 66.
29 Troubetzkoy cites one historian as stating: “Like a rudderless ship, [Alexander] veered
before the changeable winds of his enthusiasms, which were usually in contradiction
with both his own inherited beliefs and the logic of events.” See Troubetzkoy, Imperial
Legend, 65.
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Sir Thomas Lawrence and Emperor Alexander I: Picturing “the

Cunning Byzantine”
Could the Military Gallery then have been further motivated by Alexander’s
wish to shore up his own masculinity by entering a pantheon of heroic and
militaristic manliness? In being depicted by Lawrence in a portrait for the
Waterloo Chamber (fig. 11.5), the tsar was certainly getting his first experi-
ence of the possibilities that such a representation might hold. In a letter from
1818, the painter recalled meeting Alexander when he came to Aachen to sit
for the first time. Lawrence was deeply struck by the tsar’s well-mannered
friendliness and his pleasant lack of formality: “The Emperor [Alexander] […]
advanced very courteously and said, ‘I am glad to see you. I am very glad in
forming my acquaintance with you.’”30 This kind of affability struck the artist,
but he knew there were protocols for interacting with someone of Alexander’s
station. Lawrence became concerned about being seated while he worked
in the presence of such an important sovereign, but when he apologised to
Alexander for having to take a chair, the tsar would hear nothing of it, stating
simply: “Certainly no Ceremony.”31 Apparently the tsar was a good portrait sit-
ter as well. Lawrence described how: “He sat admirably, keeping his Head and
very frequently his Eye in the exact direction that I pointed out, but all the
while, except in short answers or questions to me, engag’d in very animated
Conversation with his attendant.”32
Little of the kind of ambivalence noted by other foreigners was observed by
Lawrence. For the artist, Alexander seemed an impeccable gentleman, albeit
one marked perhaps by a certain foreignness:
His Conversation was rapid, but not hurried. He express’d himself with great
clearness and Force, and various but true expression of his Countenance.
He could not have chosen Sentiments better adapted to produce favourable
Impression of him, as a Sovereign in the hourly habit of Legislating for a great but
in some respects backward Country, and as a Man […] in speaking of his Views
for Russia; he spoke of the formation and correction of his own Character; there
was in it nothing that had the appearance of Egotism or of attempted display.33
30 Fragment of a letter from Sir Thomas Lawrence, October 21, 1818, Aix-la-Chapelle, in Sir
Thomas Lawrence’s Letter-Bag, ed. George Somes Layard (London: Ballantyne Press, 1906),
136.
31 Ibid., 137.
32 Ibid., 140.
33 Ibid., 137.
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300 Allison Leigh
Figure 11.5 Sir Thomas Lawrence, Alexander I, Emperor of Russia (1777–1825), 1814–18, oil on
canvas, 273.8 × 179.5 cm, Waterloo Chamber, Windsor Castle.
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Several of the features that Lawrence describes are fascinating from a gender
standpoint. Alexander’s ability to speak clearly and forcefully, but without the
impression that he was rushed, would have been interpreted by both European
and Russian observers as signs of his enlightened education, but also as mark-
ing his mastery over personal impulses—then highly valued for men of elite
station.34 Similarly, Lawrence’s description of the sincerity of Alexander’s
speech, as well as his countenance and gestures, would have been considered
ideal characteristics for men at the time. Beyond their meaning in polite soci-
ety generally, these traits were also valued among the native elite which sur-
rounded Alexander as distinctively Russian values, ones that ran counter to
the perceived insincerity and narcissism of western men. In her work on the
history of conduct literature in Russia, Catriona Kelly describes the way men
were juxtaposed along cultural lines in the period:
Since the late eighteenth century, patriots had disapprovingly compared the
polished insincerity of foreign manners, and most particularly French man-
ners, with the straightforward, open-hearted directness of Russian behaviour.
In his letters from Paris, written in the late 1770s, the playwright Fonvizin had
bemoaned the Gallic propensity for mechanical chatter, and the frivolity, charla-
tanism, and avarice that he held to be the most important traits in the national
character.35
At the same time, Lawrence seems to be reckoning with Alexander’s alterity—

an idea that comes through perhaps most forcefully in the artist’s description
of Russia as in some respects a “backward Country.” The fact that this was tied
in Lawrence’s mind to the tsar’s sense of his own “formation and correction”
as he entered manhood provides further evidence not only of his contradic-
tory upbringing, but also of the kind of ambivalence that struck so many of
Alexander’s contemporaries as the core facet of his personality.
So how did all this affect the portrait that Lawrence would come to paint
of the enigmatic sovereign? And how did the experience of sitting for this
portrait affect Alexander’s conception of the Military Gallery he would later
commission from Dawe? In his monograph on Lawrence, Michael Levey states
that he believes it was the artist’s “interest in and respect for the tsar as sover-
eign and as man” that led to the “sensitive, scrupulously studied portrait” the
34 The theme of self-restraint can be seen expounded most clearly in the works of Denis
Fonvizin, especially in his “Discourse on Permanent Laws of State” (1783). A translation of
the text can be found in Marc Raeff, Russian Intellectual History: An Anthology (New York:
Harcourt, Brace, and World: 1966).
35 Catriona Kelly, Refining Russia: Advice Literature, Polite Culture, and Gender from Catherine
to Yeltsin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 144.
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302 Allison Leigh
artist came to paint.36 Nevertheless, perhaps something of the contradictions

of Alexander’s character were also captured by Lawrence in this important
depiction. In it, the Russian tsar looks mildly off into the distance, the warm
gaze out from Rokotov’s portrait of him as a boy now exchanged for the reflec-
tive dignity of a middle-aged man. The wavy blond locks of his childhood have
receded, and the open, welcoming stance of the youngster has become the
somewhat hesitant crossed arms pose of the gentleman-emperor. Lawrence
depicted Alexander with his hands clasped tightly in front of his groin—the
white of the tight gloves contrasting sharply with the deep indigo of his uni-
form trousers and drawing the eye to the tension so clearly contained in the
tsar’s fists. He stands awkwardly, one foot jutting out at the viewer, all of his
weight shifted to that side of his body, so heavily that his right knee looks
painfully hyperextended. The other leg looks a little short and the trousers
too tight—Alexander looks bloated in them, cinched into a uniform that can
barely contain his aging body.
It is clear that capturing Alexander’s characteristic stance while still pleas-
ing his sitter with the likeness caused Lawrence considerable problems. He
described the difficulties that developed in a letter to a certain Mrs Wolff:
I had to act decidedly against his [Alexander’s] judgement and wishes, and
to make a total alteration in the picture, changing entirely the action of the
legs, and consequently the trunk. […] He stands always resting on one leg—
(you know what I mean, the other loose on the ground, like the figures of the
antique)—and he stands either with his hat in his hand or with his hands closely
knit before him. The first figure was thus. You perceive that he here seems to
be shrinking and retiring from the object of contemplation […]. These were my
objections, and the vexatious thing was, that, before an audience of his friends,
I was to commence the alteration, by giving him four legs, and though gradually
obliterating the two first, still their agreeable lines were remaining in the most
complicated confusion. What I expected took place: during almost the whole of
it, the attendant generals complained, and the Emperor, though confiding in my
opinion, was still dissatisfied.37
Two elements of Lawrence’s description reveal what was at stake. First, and this
is always true of portrait likenesses, the artist had to contend with Alexander’s
own expectations for how he should look—what Lawrence referred to as the
tsar’s “judgement and wishes.” As if this was not difficult enough, he had to
negotiate such loaded presuppositions alongside the overarching power
36 Emphasis added. Levey, Sir Thomas Lawrence, 210.

37 Sir Thomas Lawrence, The Life and Correspondence of Sir Thomas Lawrence, Kt., President
of the Royal Academy, ed. D. E. Williams, 2 vols (London: Colburn & Bentley, 1831), 2:
115–16.
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structures that accrued when depicting a man of Alexander’s status. This

meant additionally contending with wider expectations as to how powerful
men like the Russian tsar were to be depicted. Thus, Lawrence had to balance
what Alexander actually looked like (including characteristics that had earned
the tsar the reputation of possessing “the weaknesses of a woman”) with how
a man of his position should be figured, such that he aligned with the other
powerful male rulers lining the Waterloo Chamber. Lawrence’s description of
how the tsar “seems to be shrinking and retiring from the object of contempla-
tion” reveals the ways in which Alexander did not fit the usual mould for pow-
erful masculine comportment. Instead, the painter seems aligned with other
commentators of the time who noted Alexander’s “weak character.” Signs of
the ways in which Lawrence struggled to negotiate these problematic realities
with the ideals which surrounded representation at the time remain evident
in the final picture. The alterations Lawrence made to the tsar’s legs are still
discernible when viewing the portrait today and serve as a lingering sign of the
hazards of this kind of painterly diplomacy.
All of this becomes even clearer when the depiction of the tsar is com-
pared to the other heads of state Lawrence pictured in the Waterloo Chamber
(fig. 11.6). The majority stand in a loose contrapposto like Alexander, but none
of the other rulers have their arms crossed in front of them in the manner
Lawrence devised for the Russian tsar. None of them look as exposed or as
uncomfortable. The two sovereigns nearest to Alexander in the final configura-
tion, Emperor Francis I of Austria, and King Frederick William III of Prussia,
are both positioned confidently. They also wear their clothes with an ease that
is acutely lacking in their Russian counterpart. This is especially strange given
that none other than Napoleon compared exactly these three men upon first
meeting Alexander in Tilsit in 1807. He proclaimed that in comparison to the
uninspiring Austrian emperor and the lacklustre king of Prussia, Alexander
was obviously of “veritable imperial race.”38 We know that Alexander contin-
ued to be an object of scrutiny and fascination ten years later during his visit
to Aachen. Contemporaries recalled that the tsar was continuously subjected
to critical observation, with people lining the stairs and standing on terraces to
catch a glance of him.39 Even Lawrence noticed the particular “curiosity of the
people” to see him and something of this intense scrutiny seems to have infil-
trated the portrait that the artist devised.40 The tsar’s awkwardness is palpable.
38 Quoted in Gregor Dallas, 1815: The Roads to Waterloo (London: R. Cohen Books, 1996), 30.
39 Levey, Sir Thomas Lawrence, 210.
40 Sir Thomas Lawrence, The Life and Correspondence of Sir Thomas Lawrence, 2: 114.
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304 Allison Leigh
Figure 11.6 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in the Waterloo Chamber in

Windsor Castle, Berkshire, 2018. From left to right on the wall can be seen Sir
Thomas Lawrence’s portraits of Alexander I, Francis I, Emperor of Austria
(1818–19), and Frederick William III, King of Prussia (1814–18).
© 2018, PA IMAGES / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO / PHOTO HENRY NICHOLLS
George Dawe’s Portraits of Alexander I: “Dignified Without

Affectation”
Thomas Lawrence was not the first British artist to make a portrait of
Alexander I.41 George Dawe had been first to do so, when he depicted the
Russian tsar during his visit to Britain in 1814.42 The whereabouts of that
work are currently unknown, but for many decades an oil by Dawe in the
Royal Collection was believed to be this earliest image of the tsar by the art-
ist (fig. 11.7). While recent conservation efforts have revealed that the paint-
ing was made over an engraving that was published in March 1826—and thus
cannot be the earliest work—the portrait likely still gives some indication of
the important ways in which Dawe’s depiction of the tsar differed from that
41 Levey, Sir Thomas Lawrence, 210. The French painter François Gérard also depicted
Alexander during the tsar’s stay in Paris in 1814. The painting is now in the Musée cantonal
des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne.
42 On the visit to London, see Galina Andreeva, Genii voiny, blaga i krasoty: Dzhordzh Dou,
korolevskii akademik (Moscow: Pinakoteka, 2012), 115.
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of Lawrence.43 In his picture of the sovereign, Dawe was consistently able to

capture the characteristic “action of the legs” that made Alexander’s stance
unique and had given Lawrence so much trouble. Furthermore, while the like-
ness itself is quite similar to that produced by Lawrence, no awkward ambi-
guity taints the picture. Where Lawrence’s intervention is all wrought tension
and uncomfortable withdrawal, Dawe’s depiction has an air of confidence and
amiable refinement.
The friction between the two painters, with their competing versions of the
enigmatic tsar, might also explain the ways that Lawrence described Dawe’s
activities at the Congress of Aachen. He noted being careful with the sketch
he had made of the tsar after his first sitting: “I return’d to my Lodgings with
my Sketch (churlishly abstaining from leaving it even for the possibility of
Mr. Dawe’s Inspection) […].”44 This seems to hint at a professional rivalry
between the two portraitists, or, at the very least, the more established paint-
er’s concern that Dawe might appropriate his work. Lawrence also described
how Dawe vigorously sought further commissions from the tsar. In a letter he
sent from Aachen in October 1818, Lawrence related how he saw Dawe “prowl-
ing close” to the Court of Alexander I and “creeping round it in the street.”45
Whatever the artist’s motivations or schemes, the tactics worked. Dawe was
invited to St Petersburg and arrived in the Russian capital in the spring of 1819.
His studio was set up in the Shepelev House, which abutted the imperial pal-
ace, and soon after his arrival, his brother Henry and his son-in-law Thomas
Wright both joined him in Russia to engrave the paintings he was making.46
Yet from the outset not everyone was pleased that he had been awarded such
an important commission. For the next decade, Russian critics would continu-
ally decry that the project went to a foreign artist. An anonymous critic writing
in Zhurnal iziashchnykh iskusstv [Fine Arts Magazine] declared outright that:
“Russian artists are not appreciated here, while foreign artists visiting us find
both employment and patronage.”47 Another leading critic of the period wrote
in the prominent Russian literary magazine Otechestvennye zapiski [Notes of
43 A description of the conservation discovery can be found on the Royal Collection Trust
website: https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/1/collection/400570/alexander-i-
emperor-of-russia-1777-1825, accessed July 13, 2019.
44 Sir Thomas Lawrence’s Letter-Bag, 138.
45 Ibid.
46 Renne, State Hermitage Museum Catalogue, 54 and 271.
47 N. Khudozhnik [N. “Artist”], “Pis’mo k izdateliu,” Zhurnal iziashchnykh iskusstv, no. 4
(1823): 340. Quoted in Alexey Makhrov, “The Pioneers of Russian Art Criticism: Between
State and Public Opinion, 1804–1855,” The Slavonic and East European Review 81, no. 4
(October 2003): 614–33 (623).
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306 Allison Leigh
Figure 11.7
George Dawe, Alexander I, Emperor of
Russia (1777–1825), after March 1826, oil
on engraving, lined on to canvas, 61.1
× 42.5 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
the Fatherland]: “We regretted that the honour of executing this monument
most precious for our homeland was granted to a foreign artist, while our
Academy had many excellent portrait painters.”48
When Dawe’s works were first shown in an exhibition held at the Imperial
Academy of Arts in the autumn of 1820, reviews were considerably more posi-
tive. Most of the paintings displayed were ones he had brought with him from
England to St Petersburg, but some five portraits out of eighty he had already
produced for the Military Gallery since his arrival in Russia were also included
in the show.49 Pavel Svin’in, art critic and publisher of Notes of the Fatherland,
praised the speed with which Dawe had made the likenesses, stating that:
“these are works of a most original talent.”50 Yet Svin’in went on to denigrate
“the effort to be expressive,” which he saw not only as Dawe’s fault, but also that
of the English school of painting more broadly:
48 Pavel Svin’in, “Sanktpeterburgskaia Sovremennyia letopisi,” Otechestvennye zapiski 29,

no. 81 (January 1827): 153. Quoted in Andreeva, “The Military Gallery in the Winter Palace,”
note 8, 156.
49 Renne, State Hermitage Museum Catalogue, 270.
50 Pavel Svin’in, “Sanktpeterburgskaia Sovremennyia letopisi,” Otechestvennye zapiski (1820):
299. Quoted in Renne, State Hermitage Museum Catalogue, 271.
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Figure 11.8 George Dawe, Portrait of Emperor Alexander I, 1824, oil on canvas, 238.5 cm ×
152.3 cm, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
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308 Allison Leigh
All the faces of the generals have more or less theatrical expressions, […] this is
the kind of painting to be used when the object is to be seen from afar. Such, alas,
is the defect of the works of the English Artist, or rather the general fault of the
English school […]. Yet despite all this the objective judge cannot but recognise
in G. Dawe a man of unusual talent.51
Reviews like these raised Dawe’s artistic profile considerably and he began to
receive orders for portraits from leading society ladies, numerous political offi-
cials, and members of the St Petersburg and Moscow elites.52 The workload
became heavy enough that Dawe needed to take on two assistants. The self-
taught serf artist, Alexander Poliakov, and Wilhelm Golicke both joined Dawe’s
workshop in 1822.53
Responses to the Military Gallery: “Barbarian Taste” and

“Male Chaos”
The following year, Dawe had the opportunity to paint another full-length por-
trait of Alexander I (fig. 11.8). He describes the tsar sitting for his portrait much
as Lawrence had, remarking upon Alexander’s “endless graciousness and
kindness.”54 The work proved a triumph; Svin’in called it the “most successful
portrayal of the monarch,” before elucidating the feature Dawe seems to have
captured most completely: “The emperor is represented coming to a stop dur-
ing a walk, or, it might be better to say, in his usual stance—dignified without
affectation.”55 Again, the lack of artificiality so valued by Russian men emerges
strongly in Svin’in’s review. Recall that Lawrence too had noted the absence of
“attempted display” in Alexander’s bearing. Yet the comportment of the tsar
that Lawrence had found so impossible to depict finally seems to have been
captured in the work of his rival.
51 Ibid.
52 Andreeva, Genii voiny, 148.
53 Renne, State Hermitage Museum Catalogue, 272.
54 Letter from George Dawe to John Flatery (May 1823): “Ego dobrota i liubeznost’ bez-
granichny.” Quoted in Andreeva, Genii voiny, 137.
55 Pavel Svin’in, “Imperator predstavlen ostanovivshimsiia vo vremiia progulki, ili, luchshe
skazat’, v obyknovennoi Ego positsii—velichestvennoi bez affektatsii,” Otechestvennye
zapiski 42, no. 16 (September 1823): 465. Quoted in Andreeva, Genii voiny, 139.
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The other element that Svin’in praised in his review was the “dignified” nature
of Alexander’s “usual stance.” Such sentiments about masculine comportment
reflect larger values then held in Russian society. How a man carried himself
was of the utmost importance, and a number of conduct books for young men
circulated in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Often these
contained sections on posture, manners, and overall bodily demeanour. O dol-
zhnostiakh cheloveka i grazhdanina [On the Duties of Man and Citizen], a con-
duct book produced at the command of Catherine the Great in 1783, was one
such example, as was the Manuel de civilité honnête et puerile [Handbook of
Manners for Children] which Prince Dmitrii Dashkov recalled being “plagued
with” when he was a boy.56
Fostering a proper bodily bearing among young men became a central fix-
ture of the university system during Alexander I’s rule. In her work on mascu-
linity in the Russian education system, Rebecca Friedman describes how:
In order to achieve the university’s goal of molding well-mannered decent men,

the disciplinary codes suggested that “moral education should be cultivated […]
[not only through] students’ conscience […] [but also through] their manners,
and outward appearances.” The university required participation in classes that
were designed to perfect students’ external appearance and self-presentation
in polite society. These included fencing as well as dance classes. The adminis-
tration, through its codes, explained that dance was necessary in order for stu-
dents to learn how to “enter a room, bow, and to hold oneself among well-bred
people.”57
The emphasis placed on men’s comportment is reflected strongly on the walls

of the Military Gallery, where endless rows of men demonstrate the kind of
“dignified” bearing highlighted by Svin’in in his review of the tsar’s portrait
(fig. 11.9).
The ways that masculine bearing should be highlighted in portraiture were
also a concern for the British in this moment and had been since the mid
eighteenth century. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the preeminent portraitist of the gen-
eration before Lawrence, had discussed the danger of representations which
56 See Kelly, Refining Russia, 23, and William Mills Todd III, The Familiar Letter as a Literary
Genre in the Age of Pushkin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 67. Dashkov
ended up being the Deputy Minister of the Interior from 1826 and then Deputy Minister
of Justice beginning in March of 1829. See Timothy J. Binyon, Pushkin: A Biography (New
York: Vintage Books, 2004), 302.
57 Quotes are from Kazan’skii vestnik (February 1821): 20, and Sbornik rasporiazhenii po
ministerstva narodnogo prosveshcheniia, 16 vols (St Petersburg, 1866), 2: 46. Quoted in
Rebecca Friedman, Masculinity, Autocracy, and the Russian University: 1804–1863 (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 33.
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310 Allison Leigh
Figure 11.9
The Military Gallery at the Winter
Palace, State Hermitage Museum,
St Petersburg, photograph.
PHOTO ALLISON LEIGH / CREATIVE
COMMONS CC0
bore “a sort of superficial resemblance to the manner of the great men” in his
Discourses on Art, the first seven of which were translated into Russian at the
behest of Catherine in 1790.58 For Reynolds, men’s real excellence was not to be
found in shallow appearances, for these were nothing more than conventions
“in which vanity or caprice have contrived to distort and disfigure the human
form.” In no uncertain terms, Reynolds proclaimed:
We may contrast the tumour of this presumptuous loftiness with the natural,
unaffected air of the portraits of Titian, where dignity, seeming to be natural
and inherent, draws spontaneous reverence, and instead of being thus vainly
assumed, has the appearance of an unalienable adjunct; where such pompous
and laboured insolence of grandeur is so far from creating respect that it betrays
vulgarity and meanness, and new-acquired consequence.59
58 Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Discourses, ed. Edward Gilpin Johnson (Chicago:
A. C. McClurg and Company, 1891), 330. The Russian translation of Reynolds is discussed
in Rosalind P. Blakesley, The Russian Canvas: Painting in Imperial Russia, 1757–1881 (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016), 51.
59 Reynolds, Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Discourses, 214.
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For the art historian David Solkin, this passage reveals how strongly Reynolds
feared that “the old formulae of ‘politeness’ had been appropriated by the
undignified, and henceforth were to be considered as signs of insolence, vul-
garity, and nouvelle richesse.”60 Reynolds was devising a system, one that would
prove highly influential on both Lawrence and Dawe, in which representa-
tions of true gentlemen had to convey natural “dignity” such that it inspired, as
Reynolds put it, “spontaneous reverence.” But, by the early nineteenth century,
there was a growing perception that the outward forms of such masculine dig-
nity had disintegrated to the point where they could no longer be depicted.
Leading English commentators like William Melmouth declared that “the days
of exemplary virtue are no more,” and Reynolds seemed to echo such senti-
ments when he contrasted “the tumour of […] presumptuous loftiness with
the natural, unaffected air of the portraits” of the past.61
Such ideas help to explain the negative reviews which the St Petersburg
Military Gallery garnered in the English press. The essayist Charles Lamb, for
example, produced the following scathing commentary in 1831:
There they hang, the labour of ten plodding years, in an endless gallery, […] in
the heart of Imperial Petersburgh [sic]—eternal monuments of barbarian taste
submitting to half-civilized cunning—four hundred fierce Half-Lengths, all
male, and all military; like the pit in a French theatre, […] with never a woman
among them. […] hide your pure pale cheeks, and cool English beauties, before
this suffocating horde of Scythian riflers, this male chaos!62
This is not unbiased rhetoric, to be sure; it is tinged with something of the

same sentiment that Lawrence evoked when he wrote of Russia as a “back-
ward Country.” But it is also a fascinatingly apt description of the Military
Gallery, especially if compared to the monument which was its closest rival in
Windsor Castle. Where the Waterloo Chamber was organised according to a
strict hierarchy, with full-length portraits of monarchs hanging at ground level
and half-lengths of diplomats and statesmen alternating between them, the
St Petersburg Gallery plunged the viewer into a sea of floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-
wall, bifurcated male bodies. The depictions failed to codify a comprehensible
hierarchy or system of virtue; instead, they revealed a strange kind of break-
down in models for manhood occurring in the wake of Napoleon’s invasion.
60 Solkin, “Great Pictures or Great Men,” 47.

61 The Letters of Sir Thomas Fitzosborne, on Several Subjects, 8th edition, 1776 (originally pub-
lished 1748–49), 9. Quoted in Solkin, “Great Pictures or Great Men,” 43.
62 Charles Lamb, “Recollections of a Late Royal Academician,” first published in Englishman’s
Magazine (September 1831), in The Complete Works of Charles Lamb in Prose and Verse
(London: Chatto & Windus, 1901), 430.
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312 Allison Leigh
What Lamb called “male chaos” found echo in the sentiments of other com-
mentators on the Military Gallery as well. Buried amongst what were largely
positive reviews are subtle notes of discontent with the portraits and their
overall effect. The physician and writer Augustus Bozzi Granville described the
unfortunate “degree of monotony” which resulted from all of the men being
“denoted by one general characteristic, ‘heroism in the career of arms’ […].”63
And he went on to express displeasure with the fact that the portraits “are nei-
ther massive nor splendid enough to be in character with the magnificence of
the place.”64 Charles Piazzi Smyth noted a similar monotony when he visited
the Gallery in 1859, likening “the innumerable portrait heads” that covered the
walls to “the closely packed squares of a chess-board.”65 All of this indicates
a breakdown in the coherence of systems for portraying masculine invulner-
ability. And it shows that Russia was no more immune to the collapse of stable
signifiers for virtuous manhood than Britain had been when Reynolds began
delivering his Discourses some fifty years before. Where he and other critical
commentators like Melmouth had decried the loss of firm conceptualisations
of male dignity and virtue in the British context, Russian critics were, by the
time Dawe was making his portraits for the Military Gallery, echoing such sen-
timents. In both nations, the tradition of historical portraiture was unable to
stabilise a growing conflict within modes for depicting ideal manhood.
Nevertheless, public validation of one’s status within the larger male group,
often achieved through representations of one’s achievements or through
appearances more generally, still mattered. As the historian John Tosh points
out in his reflections on masculinity in nineteenth-century Britain: “public affir-
mation was, and still is, absolutely central to masculine status […] qualification
for a man’s life among men – in short for a role in the public sphere – depends
on their masculinity being tested against the recognition of their peers […].”66
What critical commentary on the Gallery revealed was a rupture in men’s rec-
ognition of the firm “masculine status” of other men. Lamb’s evocation of the
“suffocating horde” and “male chaos,” Granville’s sense of the “monotony” of all
that heroism, and Smyth’s description of the great war heroes as looking like
little more than pieces being shuffled on “a chess-board”—all these opinions
63 Augustus Bozzi Granville, St Petersburg: A Journal of Travels to and from that Capital,
2 vols (London: Henry Colburn, 1828), 1: 537–38. Quoted in Renne, State Hermitage
Museum Catalogue, 275.
64 Granville, St Petersburg, 1: 538. Quoted in ibid., 276.
65 Charles Piazzi Smyth, Three Cities in Russia, 2 vols (London: Lovell, Reeve & Co., 1862), 2:
141–42. Quoted in ibid., 279.
66 John Tosh, “What Should Historians Do with Masculinity? Reflections on Nineteenth-
Century Britain,” History Workshop, no. 38 (1994): 184.
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indicate the nascent evaporation of patriarchal myths. Even the Russian tsar—
at the time one of the greatest representatives of indomitable male power on
earth due to his success against Napoleon—was not immune to this break-
down in stable structures for representing his gender. Despite the fact that
rhetoric at the time proudly claimed Alexander as the “saviour of Europe,” his
military triumph did not immediately beget successful representations of him
as an all-powerful rescuer.67
In the end, importing a cultural diplomat like Dawe did not assure view-
ers that there was a firm footing for the depiction of honourable masculin-
ity. The Military Gallery proves one of the greatest examples in history of an
attempt to visually shore up the “concepts, symbolizations, and exhortations
of masculinity.”68 Yet even the production of more than three hundred por-
traits of Russia’s greatest men was not able fully to sustain the gender ideology
that had made men the exclusive actors on the stage of warfare and diplomacy
for so many centuries. By projecting what were perceived to be the lingering
signs of ideal manhood—honourable comportment, lack of artificiality, and
an air of natural dignity—artists and political figures alike hoped to stabilise
the gender ideologies which sharply distinguished between private and pub-
lic realms in this period. In this sense, it is no wonder that the origins of the
Military Gallery can be found in a hybrid form of diplomacy—one that saw
the merging of artistic and political forms of exchange and figured both as the
exclusive domains of men.
Bibliography
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Edwards, Edward. Anecdotes of painters, who have resided or been born in England: with
critical remarks on their productions. London: Leigh and Sotheby, 1808.
Granville, Augustus Bozzi. St Petersburg: A Journal of Travels to and from that Capital.
2 vols. London: Henry Colburn, 1828.
Lamb, Charles. The Complete Works of Charles Lamb in Prose and Verse. London: Chatto
and Windus, 1901.
Lawrence, Sir Thomas. The Life and Correspondence of Sir Thomas Lawrence, Kt.,
President of the Royal Academy. Edited by D. E. Williams. 2 vols. London: Colburn &
Bentley, 1831.
67 Adam Zamoyski, Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna (New York:
Harper Collins, 2008), 15.
68 Gilmore, Manhood in the Making, 3.
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Lawrence, Sir Thomas. Sir Thomas Lawrence’s Letter-Bag. Edited by George Somes
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Andreeva, Galina. “The Military Gallery in the Winter Palace (The Hermitage):
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Publishers, 1999.
Andreeva, Galina. Genii voiny, blaga i krasoty: Dzhordzh Dou, korolevskii akademik.
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Binyon, Timothy J. Pushkin: A Biography. New York: Vintage Books, 2004.
Blakesley, Rosalind P. “Slavs, Brits and the Question of National Identity in Art: Russian
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Blakesley, Rosalind P. The Russian Canvas: Painting in Imperial Russia, 1757–1881. New
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Dallas, Gregor. 1815: The Roads to Waterloo. London: R. Cohen Books, 1996.
Friedman, Rebecca. Masculinity, Autocracy, and the Russian University: 1804–1863. New
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Gilmore, David D. Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity. New
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Kelly, Catriona. Refining Russia: Advice Literature, Polite Culture, and Gender from
Catherine to Yeltsin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Levey, Michael. Sir Thomas Lawrence. New Haven and London: Yale University Press,
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Raeff, Marc. Russian Intellectual History: An Anthology. New York: Harcourt, Brace and
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Solkin, David H. “Great Pictures or Great Men? Reynolds, Male Portraiture, and the
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Part IV
Dynasties and Domesticities
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Chapter 12
The Wedding of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and

Maria Alexandrovna of Russia in 1874 and its
Visual Commemoration
Stephen Patterson
The three centuries between the visit of Tsar Peter I (“the Great”) to England
in 1698 and the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Russia in 1994 saw the building of
alliances, diplomatic ties, and family connections between Britain and Russia.
The reign of Queen Victoria introduced a new dynamic to the relationship
when the Russian imperial family and the British royal family forged direct
dynastic ties through marriage. The first, in St Petersburg on January 23, 1874,
saw the only surviving daughter of Emperor Alexander II, Grand Duchess Maria
Alexandrovna (known as “Marie”), marry the second son of Victoria, Prince
Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (“Affie”) (fig. 12.1).1 This was the first British-Russian
marriage since the late eleventh century, when Prince Vladimir Monomakh,
later Grand Prince Vladimir II, married Gytha of Wessex, the illegitimate
daughter of Harold Godwinson, the last Saxon king.
The marriage of 1874, which followed a protracted courtship in the face of
severe opposition and at times quite terse familial correspondence, was an
event of national significance in both countries. The occasion was memori-
alised in many ways: poetry, prose, charitable donations, naming of schools
and institutions—including a lifeboat, “Marie.” It was also recorded for pos-
terity through the creation of various works of art, not least portraiture. One
reason for this was the issue of distance, and the fact that Victoria did not
travel to Russia to attend the nuptials, nor had she met her daughter-in-law to
be. Consequently, the need to make visual records of the celebrations was all
the greater; that the events could be understood and commemorated was an
important concern for the queen and indeed the bride and groom.
The recording of British royal weddings has a long history and each of
Victoria’s children’s marriages, from that of Victoria, Princess Royal in 1858, to
that of Princess Beatrice in 1885, was immortalised in oil on canvas. The practice
1 The marriage was followed by those of two of Queen Victoria’s granddaughters to Russian
royals: Princess Elisabeth of Hesse Darmstadt to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich in 1884,
and her sister Princess Alix of Hesse Darmstadt to Emperor Nicholas II in 1894.

320 Stephen Patterson
Figure 12.1
Charles Bergamasco, Prince Alfred, Duke of
Edinburgh, 1874, hand-coloured albumen
photographic print, 23.9 × 9.6 cm, Royal
started with the commission to Sir George Hayter to record the ceremony of
the queen’s own wedding to Prince Albert in 1840. The weddings of her first
children to be married were painted by a variety of artists: John Phillip (the
Princess Royal); George Housman Thomas (Princess Alice in 1862); Housman
Thomas and William Powell Frith (the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1863).
The marriage of Princess Helena was recorded by Christian Karl Magnussen,
of whom the bride’s sister wrote: “I do not think much of him as an artist but
I like him as a good and amiable man! I think his portraits lamentable […].”2
Princess Louise’s marriage to Lord Lorne, the future Duke of Argyll, in 1871 was
recorded by Sydney Prior Hall. Until 1874 the marriages of the queen’s children
had taken place in Britain, so recording the marriage in St Petersburg assumed
additional significance, as did the commission of a portrait of the bride-to-be.
The choice of artists and the events surrounding the commissions reflected
some of the challenges for the couple, their parents, and the respective royal
and imperial households. These were not without incident and weave their way
through the narrative from the couple’s engagement to their arrival in Britain
2 Victoria, Princess Royal to Queen Victoria, August 22, 1873, RA VIC/MAIN/Z/27/78, Royal
Archives, Windsor Castle, Windsor, United Kingdom. All references hereafter which begin
“RA” refer to the aforementioned archives at Windsor.
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The Wedding of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh 321
as newly-weds. Previous accounts have focused on the gossipy aspects of the

relationship that for some, from the outset, cast Marie as a “spoilt daughter
of a semi-eastern despot” (as one of Victoria’s advisors described her around
the time of the engagement), arguing that the squabbles about title and prec-
edent which followed were inevitable, and that marriage to Alfred was bound
to be challenging.3 Indeed, the marriage was not the most successful, and—for
all the protection of her Romanov childhood—Marie was to have a difficult
life. Her father, two brothers, a sister-in-law, three nephews, and seven cous-
ins were murdered, along with many other distant relatives and friends; she
outlived her siblings; in 1914, when her native land and Britain went to war
with Germany and her adopted state Saxe-Coburg, her loyalties were tested.
Her only son died at the time of her Silver Wedding and she herself died in
Switzerland, an exile from her homes in Russia, Britain, and Saxe-Coburg,
unable to receive her income from Russia when all imperial treaties were abro-
gated by the Bolsheviks, including the marriage treaty of some forty-five years
earlier.
Marriage Preparations
The story of the union begins with the visit of the young Prince Alfred to Russia
in June 1862. He was the first member of the British royal family to so do, as an
officer on the HMS St George. For its summer cruise, the queen had proposed
that the St George sail around Scotland; however, the navy desired that it travel
to the Baltic and this decision prevailed. A stopover was made at Kronstadt and
the prince, his tutor John Cowell, and the British Chargé d’affaires were invited
to join Alexander II and his family, who were staying nearby at Oranienbaum.
The visit was recorded by the painter Adolphe Charlemagne (fig. 12.2) in at
least two images of the young prince being driven around the park with his
host and suite at breakneck speed. But it was not on this occasion that he
met his bride-to-be. This happened in 1868 when he was staying with his sis-
ter Alice at Darmstadt. Here he again met Alexander II and Empress Maria
Alexandrovna (born a princess of Hesse and by Rhine, now aunt to Alice’s hus-
band, the future Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse) and their family, including
Marie. The courtship which developed between the prince and grand duch-
ess was a protracted affair with practical issues of distance, politics, parental
disquiet, and the prince’s duties in the Royal Navy keeping the pair separated.
3 Sir Henry Ponsonby to Lady Ponsonby, June 15, 1873, RA VIC/ADDA36/585.
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An engagement was under discussion for some two years before an

announcement was made but it was not enthusiastically sought by any party
apart from the couple themselves. There were obstacles such as faith, concerns
about money, title, and diplomatic challenges on both the Russian and British
sides. In April 1873 the relationship was rekindled at a meeting between the
Duke of Edinburgh and the grand duchess in Sorrento, the duke being a guest
of Empress Maria Alexandrovna. However, no progress was made and the mat-
ter appeared to be closed. In May the queen’s Private Secretary wrote to the
Foreign Secretary: “HM cannot avoid letting you know confidentially that she
would not be sorry if the Russian affair were at an end.”4 But the meeting was
the turning point for the grand duchess. Her parents had left the final decision
to her, and Alfred knew this. When news of an engagement finally came on
July 11, the queen confided to her journal that:
a telegram was brought, which came from Affie […]: ‘Marie & I were engaged
this morning. Cannot say how happy I am. Hope your blessing rests on us.’ Was
greatly astonished at the great rapidity with which the matter has been settled
& announced.
[…] Felt quite bewildered. Not knowing Marie […] my thoughts & feelings are
rather mixed, […] I hope and pray it may turn out for Affie’s happiness.5
The announcement was met with a variety of responses from within the fam-
ily. The Princess of Wales was “delighted to hear everything so satisfactorily
arranged with Alfred and the Grand Duchess.”6 Princess Louise (Prince Alfred’s
sister) expressed good wishes but also referred to previous “objections:”
I hope it is for the best, & that it will be a happiness for you, & be a marriage
of harmony to the family. We have so often spoken over the objections that I
need not mention them again. […] Uncle George [the Duke of Cambridge] is
distressed about it & thinks it will be a bad thing politically but I think that this
is only a gloomy way of his.7
Princess Alice, who had been supportive of the match throughout, wrote of her
future sister-in-law in terms that the queen would approve:
4 Sir Henry Ponsonby to Lord Granville, May 8, 1873, RA VIC/MAIN/S/27/8.

5 Queen Victoria’s Journal, July 11, 1873, RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) (hereafter, “Queen Victoria’s
Journal”).
6 The Princess of Wales to Queen Victoria, July 11, 1873, RA VIC/MAIN/S/27/100.
7 Princess Louise to Queen Victoria, July 12, 1873, RA VIC/MAIN/S/27/110.
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Marie spoke so nicely of Germany & Coburg, how she would encourage Affie to
love Papa’s old home. She is kind and yielding and very feminine, with a dislike to
[sic] everything fast & positively fashionable. She will be very domestic […]. She
speaks exactly as you yourself would wish to hear her speak on all points […].8
From the foreign secretary, Lord Granville, came the laconic message that “[he]
presumes Your Majesty has heard of the acceptance,” and from Ponsonby the
comment that “his earnest hope [was] that this marriage will be as happy a
one for Your Majesty as it promises to be for the Duke of Edinburgh.”9
Portraiture and photography were to become key methods of communica-
tion between Marie and the queen. The bride-to-be began a correspondence
which was both charming and a refreshingly positive voice in an otherwise
often negative atmosphere of diplomatic and legal wrangling. In July 1873 Marie
wrote: “I already feel that I am no longer a stranger to you, but have my place
among your children—I send you a better photograph than the only ones I had
when Alfred last wrote […].”10
In September the Duke of Edinburgh visited Russia for a lengthy stay in the
Crimea, travelling to visit his fiancée and her family at Livadia. In a postscript
to a letter in which Marie, diplomatically, speaks of his journey and her desire
to see the queen’s beloved Scotland, she mentions: “The painter Richter has
not yet come.”11 This is the first reference by Marie to the artist Gustav Richter
(1823–84), who had been commissioned by Alexander II to paint the grand
duchess’s portrait as a gift to Victoria to mark the betrothal (fig. 12.3).
Royal Commissions
Recent research into the correspondence of Marie and Queen Victoria’s eldest
daughter, Victoria, Princess Royal and Crown Princess of Prussia, with the
queen sheds new light on this commission; however, details are yet to be found
in the archives in Russia. On the day of the engagement, the crown princess
wrote to her mother about immortalising the new couple in oils. The com-
ments came, in part, on account of the death three days earlier of Franz Xaver
Winterhalter (1805–73), the artist who had effectively established the iconog-
raphy of the courts of Europe over the past thirty years. “How natural it would
8 Princess Alice to Queen Victoria, July 4, 1873, RA VIC/MAIN/S/27/98.

9 Lord Granville to Queen Victoria, July 11, 1873, RA VIC/MAIN/S/27/100 [part]; Sir Henry
Ponsonby to Queen Victoria, July 11, 1873, RA VIC/MAIN/S/27/102.
10 Maria Alexandrovna to Queen Victoria, July 19, 1873, RA VIC/ADDA/20/1421.
11 Maria Alexandrovna to Queen Victoria, September 4, 1873, RA VIC/ADDA/20/1423.
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Figure 12.2 Adolphe Charlemagne, Prince Alfred driving at Oranienbaum, August 1862, 1862,
pencil, pen and ink, watercolour, bodycolour heightened with gum and with
scraping out, 25 × 34.5 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
have been to ask poor dear Winterhalter to paint 2 fine pictures of Affie &
Marie of Russia—it will be difficult to find any one now,” she wrote. “Richter
of Berlin is the greatest & most celebrated […], & after him, “Angely” of Vienna
[i.e., Heinrich von Angeli], & then Kaulbach though his taste in arrangement
is often defective whereas Richter is so elegant, & brilliant—Winterhalter only
said so again to me last year.”12
The choice of Richter would appear to have been passed to Alexander II—
first cousin of the crown princess’s husband Frederick—and the emperor
engaged the artist in the autumn to paint Marie’s portrait. It was not the first
time that Victoria had come across Richter’s name. In 1867 the crown prin-
cess had purchased one of his watercolours for the queen: “today I could
not resist buying a watercolour sketch done by one of our very 1st artists
12 Victoria, Princess Royal to Queen Victoria, July 11, 1873, RA VIC/MAIN/Z/27/70.
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Richter—representing me—selling your shawls. I thought it wd please you but

I am afraid it will cost you £5.”13
It had been intended that the painting be executed in St Petersburg, but
Richter was prevented from joining the Imperial family in the capital by ill
health and instead he travelled to the imperial residence on the shores of the
Black Sea at Livadia. Because of the delay in Richter’s arrival, he had to work at
a pace when he started the commission, and this took up much of the couple’s
time. Their welcome was warm but there was a practical issue:
The Grand Duchess and the Duke of Edinburgh conducted Professor Richter all
over the castle but found no room adapted for a studio not even in the adjoin-
ing villas of the Grand Dukes. […] [The] Emperor […] begged Richter to sketch
the plan of an atelier in order to have one quickly built; […]. As if by magic, at the
promised time, the atelier was fitted up with all the comforts imaginable; the
arrangements were perfect, and Richter could immediately begin his work.14
According to Johann Köler (1826–99), an Estonian artist who had been engaged
to teach painting to the grand duchess and acted as Richter’s assistant in the
commission, the studio was established in the palace garden.15
In late October 1873, Marie wrote to Victoria:
today is my first free morning since […] Ricter [sic] has begun my portrait. He
takes a very long time […] and I am obliged to sit for it whole mornings but I
think the result will be so very good for the portrait is already charming though
not finished and very like. It will be such a pleasure for me the day you receive
this portrait for I am sure it will please you much!16
The duke and his mother also discussed the topic: “Marie’s picture is nearly
finished & will be very good, but the sittings have been a great bore & have
taken away much of our time every day.”17 Eager to keep their readers abreast
of royal happenings, the activities surrounding the royal wedding and engage-
ment were recorded in the popular press. The Berlin correspondent of The
13 Victoria, Princess Royal to Queen Victoria, April 11, 1867, RA VIC/MAIN/Z/19/78. The
sketch remains in the Royal Collection (RCIN 926525).
14 “The Duchess of Edinburgh and the Painter Richter,” Newcastle Daily Journal, March 14,
1874, https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk, accessed July 2, 2021.
15 [Johann Köler], “Ivan Petrovich Këler, Professor Zhivopisi, 1826–1886, Prodolzhenie,”
Russkaia Starina 52 (1886): 333–78 (370), https://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/Индекс:1886,_
Russkaya_starina,_Vol_51,52._№10-12_and_name_index_for_vol.49-52.pdf, accessed
July 2, 2021.
16 Maria Alexandrovna to Queen Victoria, October 15, 1873, RA VIC/ADDA/20/1425.
17 Prince Alfred to Queen Victoria, October 21, 1873, RA VIC/ADDA/20/1360.
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Hour (published in a number of British papers) reported that: “The sittings

for the Picture were in the morning. Her imperial highness brought books for
reading with her and when it was necessary to sit perfectly still the duke wrote
[…]. At 2.00 the emperor came to enquire about the progress of the picture and
to fetch his daughter.”18
In the New Year, Marie wrote to her soon-to-be mother-in-law: “I am so
pleased that my portrait is going at last. I hope it will please you and you will
find it like when you see the original.”19 However, there was a further delay, as
the painting was needed as the basis of miniatures to be presented as gifts.
Meanwhile, progress was relayed to the crown princess in Berlin: “I hear from
Affie & Marie herself that her Picture by Richter is quite excellent.”20
On January 18, 1874, the portrait was delivered to Osborne:
The ‘Feldjäger’ [the queen’s messenger] arrived from St Petersburg, bringing let-
ters from Affie & Marie & the long-expected portrait of her by Richter […]. It is a
lovely picture ½ length, & beautifully painted. She is standing on a balcony in a
light blue evening dress, with a fan in her hand. The face is very pleasing & very
like the photographs, so that I should think it must be a good likeness.21
Queen Victoria reported to Princess Louise that “Richter’s Picture […] arrived
on Sunday & is beautiful & quite worthy of Winterhalter I have hung it up
at present in the Dining room here […]. You will admire it very much.”22 The
speed of production and the need for it to reach the queen meant that the
painting left Russia still unvarnished. Köler recorded that Richter had left
Livadia when the portrait was finished and had asked him to varnish it when
dry. Unfortunately, some of the paints would not dry in time and he could not
complete the task.23
On the wedding day itself, “Marie’s picture was surrounded by a wreath of
evergreens & some orange flowers, tied with bows of the Russian colours.”24 The
painting then hung for the rest of the queen’s life in the Oak Room at Windsor
Castle, along with images of her other daughters-in-law. When she heard this,
the crown princess commented: “The Oak Room will be an excellent place for
putting the portrait, I am sure!” However, Richter had somewhat faded from
18 “The Duchess of Edinburgh and the Painter Richter,” Newcastle Daily Journal, March 14,
19 Maria Alexandrovna to Queen Victoria, January 1, 1874, RA VIC/ADDA/20/1429.
20 Victoria, Princess Royal to Queen Victoria, November 11, 1874. RA VIC/ADDU/32.
21 Queen Victoria’s Journal, January 18, 1874.
22 Queen Victoria to Princess Louise, January 20, 1874. RA VIC/ADDA/17/602.
23 Köler, “Ivan Petrovich Këler,” 333–34.
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Figure 12.3 Gustav Karl Ludwig Richter, Maria Alexandrovna, Grand Duchess of Russia,
1873–74, oil on canvas, 145.8 × 94.7 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
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Figure 12.4
Mary Thornycroft, Grand Duchess Marie
Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh, 1876,
marble, 66.5 cm (height), Royal Collection
Trust, London.
the pinnacle at which he previously had been placed in her estimation: “Does
not Richter’s look a little weak and flat and superficial near Angeli’s? Richter
is very clever & has a deal of taste, but to my mind he is not to be compared to
Angeli.”25
Marie’s joining the royal family was also recorded by the commission by the
queen of a bust of the new addition by the English sculptor Mary Thornycroft
(1809–95) (fig. 12.4). This was added to the pantheon of portrait busts of
daughters and daughters-in-law in the corridor outside the queen’s rooms at
Buckingham Palace.
Nuptial Negotiations
The difficulties to which the queen had alluded previously were, firstly, money
and faith, and later, precedence. Money was at the heart of the discussions,
starting with the extension of the Civil List to contribute to the upkeep of
the duke and duchess’s household. This provided £10,000 per annum for the
couple, reducing to “a sum not exceeding” £6,000 per annum for Marie in the
25 Victoria, Princess Royal to Queen Victoria, July 20, 1875, RA VIC/MAIN/Z/29/36.
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Figure 12.5 The Russian Chapel, Clarence House, photograph, Royal Collection Trust, London.
event she survived her husband.26 Parliament’s approval came shortly after the
engagement and was confirmed at a Council on July 17, held by the queen at
Osborne. Suitable celebrations followed, as the queen recorded in her diary:
“at dinner Affie’s & the Gd Duchess’s healths were drunk; they then went up
the tower of the house and watched fireworks set off to mark the occasion.”27
The engagement started the drawn-out affair of the marriage treaty, which
the queen discussed with the Prime Minister, William Gladstone, on July 30.
The queen’s first impressions of the Treaty, which she expressed to Ponsonby,
26 United Kingdom. Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 3d ser., vol. 217 (1873), July 31, 1873,
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1873-07-31/debates/31563af3-5a3b-4b29-96cb-
c55597651a1b/SecondReading?highlight=civil%20list%20marriage%20russia#
contribution-300b7b16-2c39-4875-8d88-4b94d9e8709e, accessed June 30, 2021.
27 Queen Victoria’s Journal, July 17, 1873.
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were that it “contains many unnecessary articles and enters into details which
should not be particularised. The whole tone is imperious and Lord Granville
[…] should on no account allow any undue superiority of tone.”28 That all being
said, she was taken aback with the generosity of the Russians. She also made
clear that the Duke of Edinburgh should not be part of the negotiations: “it is
also most important that Prince Alfred should not be drawn into any personal
discussions […] as else he might get into painful altercations or find himself at
variance with The Queen’s wishes.”29 The queen had an erratic approach to the
negotiations; she insisted that the wedding take place before February 21, so
that the couple could get to Britain before the start of Lent, but in December
Lord Granville reported that “The Queen told me at Windsor that I need not
trouble Her Majesty with the details.”30 Most of the drafting and negotiating
on the Russian side was done by the Maître de cour, Count Adlerberg, and the
diplomat Count Shuvalov, but Alexander Gorchakov, the foreign minister, was
also included, as was his British opposite number, Lord Granville, and the two
ambassadors, Lord Loftus for the British in St Petersburg and Ernst Philipp,
Graf von Brunnow in London for the Russians.31
Money dominated the discussions, particularly the settlement on the grand
duchess and her household:
Affie came up to my room & remained over an hour talking over everything.
He was very sensible in all he said & told me Marie was very simple & quiet.
Discussed possible persons to be her [Marie’s] ladies. He said she would have to
have a Russian Secretary on account of her money & property being in Russia.
Then he showed me the plans for enlarging Clarence House.32
The revised plans were drawn up in November, and they also addressed the
matter of accommodation for the couple. Clarence House was chosen as their
London home and Affie set about having it expanded. This included the com-
missioning of an Orthodox chapel (fig. 12.5), added to meet the clause in the
treaty allowing the grand duchess to freely practise her Orthodox faith.33 The
iconostasis was adorned with icons by the painter Carl Timoleon von Neff
28 Queen Victoria to Lord Granville, August 30, 1873, RA VIC/MAIN/S/27/162.

29 Ibid.
30 Lord Granville to Sir Henry Ponsonby, December 28, 1873, RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/19.
31 Count Petr Andreevich Shuvalov (1827–89), later Russian ambassador to London, 1874–
79; Count Aleksandr Vladimirovich Adlerberg (1818–88), Minister of the Imperial Court;
Prince Aleksandr Mikhailovich Gorchakov (1798–1883).
32 Queen Victoria’s Journal, August 13, 1873.
33 Russia Treaty: marriage between the Duke of Edinburgh and the Grand Duchess Marie of
Russia: Article III, FO 94/639, The National Archives, Kew, London (hereafter “TNA”).
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[Timofei Neff, 1804–77] an artist known to both courts as his paintings of the
grand duchess’s aunts, Grand Duchess Marie and Grand Duchess Olga, and
her grandmother, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, had been presented to
Victoria by Nicholas I as a wedding present in 1840 (fig. 6.2). The grand duch-
ess’s Orthodox faith had been a topic of concern but was overcome with the
proviso that the children of the marriage would be brought up in the Anglican
tradition and that the grand duchess would, as necessary, attend services of
the Church of England and Scottish churches. Ultimately, Marie had only one
priest, and the chapel was mostly served from the Russian embassy chapel in
Welbeck Street, London. The chapel at Clarence House was disbanded in 1901
and the church fittings transferred to the newly built Russian Orthodox church
in Darmstadt which had been commissioned by Emperor Nicholas II. More
recently, in April 2021, the ecclesiastical plate for the London chapel, a wed-
ding present to the grand duchess, was presented by the Russian president to
the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.34
Among other challenges, there was the question of whether a marriage in
the Winter Palace was legally valid in Britain. The queen asserted that “The
Protestant Marriage only requires the presence of the British Ambassador
any where to make it perfectly legal.”35 The Dean of Westminster, who was
instructed to officiate at an Anglican marriage service to complement the
Orthodox service and thus respect the faith traditions of each court, suggested
that the government ask the emperor to make the Alexander Hall temporar-
ily British territory for the duration of the service. But the Lord Chancellor
pointed out that marriages legally contracted abroad were legal in the United
Kingdom too, and no change was required.
In the negotiations, Henry Ponsonby suggested to Lord Granville—perhaps
on the queen’s behalf—“would it not be desirable to add ‘with the consent
of the Sovereign of G. Britain & I’” to the clause in the treaty concerning the
appointment of members of the grand duchess’s household.36 This was evi-
denced by the announcement in The London Gazette on January 27: “Her Royal
Highness the Duchess of Edinburgh has been pleased to make the following
appointments, with the approval of Her Majesty the Queen:—three Ladies
of the Bedchamber and Mr. Dmitry Kalochine, to be Private Secretary to Her
Royal Highness.”37 The original draft for The London Gazette had styled the
34 “Putin podaril Ermitazhu komplekt liturgicheskikh predmetov docheri Aleksandra II,”

April 27, 2021, https://smotrim.ru/article/2556187#vgtrk_player_2556187, accessed June 18,
2021.
35 Queen Victoria to Sir Henry Ponsonby, December [n.d.], 1873, RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/8.
36 Sir Henry Ponsonby to Lord Granville, December 20, 1873, RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/9.
37 The London Gazette, no. 24058 (January 27, 1874): 340.
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grand duchess “Imperial and royal” but “imperial” was crossed out and “Grand
Duchess” was changed to “Duchess,” setting the queen and her new daughter-
in-law on a collision course on the subject of titles and precedence. This would
sour relations at court in the early years of the marriage and would elicit, in a
letter from Brunnow to the Tsesarevich Alexander, the perceptive observation
that the queen “submits, with regret, to the discomfort imposed on her by the
constitutional regime […] by exercising on her family a power which is more
than absolute.”38
Issues arose about presents to be given to the bride’s family. Gladstone
became involved, as there were no funds available in the Foreign Office, and
since Victoria saw it as a state rather than private matter, she felt it inappropri-
ate for the Crown to pay. The Royal Bounty Fund was suggested as a source.39
However, he found a large surplus from which to draw. In the end, the gifts cost
some £2,758 (+/- £50) and included a vase sent to the emperor and empress, for
which they telegraphed their thanks to the queen.
Key to the treaty was the question of how the grand duchess could deal
with her property. At one point it was suggested that the Russians were trying
to exclude Alfred from any future will of Marie’s, and that she could not leave
any of her estate to him other than that which was stipulated. As advised by
the queen, the duke was effectively excluded from any aspect of the negotia-
tions. This may have been wise, as his brief forays into the discussions appear
to have revolved solely around money. In the only letter of this time from the
duke to Ponsonby in the Royal Archives, he observed that the treaty seemed to
give entire control of the access to money and income to Marie: “The contract
seems to give entire use & authority over HIH’s income (I can’t say property as
it is tied up) to herself; I think that the husband should have some control.”40
The duke’s feelings reached the ears of Brunnow, who, ever concerned to avoid
tension and misunderstanding between the two courts, advised that reports
had reached Russia that the duke was parsimonious and, if it should occur to
the emperor that the duke was financially grasping, this would be disadvanta-
geous to the duke in the eyes of his future father-in-law.
38 Ernst Philipp Graf von Brunnow to Tsesarevich Alexander, April/May 19/1, 1874, Arkhiv
vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi Imperii [Archive of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian
Empire] (“AVPRI”), 133 /468/1874/607.
39 Note on correspondence from Sir Thomas Biddulph to William Gladstone, January 6, 1874,
RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/25.
40 Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh to Sir Henry Ponsonby, September 8, 1873, RA VIC/MAIN/
S/27/166.
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Tensions and nerves in St Petersburg were becoming frayed, with one

note to Ponsonby reading “time presses.”41 On January 12, the message came
through that there was only one more day to prepare the ratification and
any hitch might make it impossible to get it done in time. But the following
day the Lord Chancellor and the law officers were still not agreed on their
interpretation of the treaty: “‘at the last moment, […] the 3 Law officers have
informed Lord Granville that they think one of Mr White’s amendments to be
unreasonable.”42 One area of concern was what the duke might inherit if his
wife predeceased him. At one point it looked as if the grand duchess would not
be able to bequeath her fortune to the duke and that he could receive no more
than 250,000 roubles (about £3.58 million in today’s money). When this was
reviewed, the Russians advised that there were no such limits, and that this
was a generous offer from the emperor.
The focus on what happened in the event of one party’s death was perhaps
correct in a time of high early mortality and disease. It was at this point that
a small spark of humanity came through in the legal negotiations between
St Petersburg and London, with a comment by Lord Tenterden, Permanent
Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, to Ponsonby on January 14 that:
“whatever the Russian lawyers meant, it is to be hoped that the long life and
happy family relations of the Royal Couple may render these niceties of money
settlements unimportant.”43
The queen approved the final agreement on the morning of January 16, and
again in the evening, with some last-minute changes. This was only seven days
before the nuptials, and queries from law officers continued over aspects of
the duke’s potential rights. Ponsonby told the queen that “the Russian lawyers
do not think that the alterations are necessary as they would not affect The
Duke of Edinburgh. The English lawyers think otherwise. But as the question
depends on Russian law, the former are probably the best judges.”44 The treaty
was initialled by the Russian plenipotentiaries and Ambassador Loftus on
January 19; it was only on the morning of the wedding itself that a telegram
was received at Osborne with the news that the British ambassador had finally
signed the treaty the previous night.
Protocol and money came together in the discussions about the importing
of the bride’s trousseau to Britain on her arrival from Russia. It started with a
request from the British Embassy in St Petersburg that HM Customs refrain
41 Lord Tenterden to Sir Henry Ponsonby, January 9, 1874, RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/39.

42 Lord Granville to Queen Victoria, December 21, 1873, RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/11.
43 Lord Tenterden to Henry Ponsonby, January 14, 1874, RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/71.
44 Henry Ponsonby to Queen Victoria, January 17, 1874, RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/81.
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from searching the grand duchess’s bags on her arrival. This was followed by a
letter from the duke to Gladstone repeating the request, to avoid offence to the
Russians. Gladstone replied that only the sovereign was exempt from customs
or paying duty, especially on plate entering Britain. This said, he proposed a
solution: the Foreign Office was to let the Prime Minister’s Office know when
the luggage would be arriving, and he would advise HM Customs to let the
trousseau through. And, if the duke could let him know the value of the plate,
the duty would be defrayed from a special branch of the Civil List at no cost to
him. This key detail was lost in translation and a letter was sent on behalf of
the duke:
His Royal Highness is not aware whether Mr Gladstone knows how large an
amount is involved in the matter. […] For instance the Bread and Salt, which
according to Russian Custom is by tradition presented by large towns is delivered
upon massive silvergilt plates, weighing very heavily, and which would hence
be chargeable with a serious amount of duty. Indeed, generally speaking, if H R
Highness were to be liable on this occasion to the usual payments he would be
mulet [sic] to the amount of Several thousands of pounds.45
It was clarified that the duke would not pay. However, valuation of the plate
would have to wait until his arrival in London, as “how awkward and undesir-
able it would be to have such a valuation made here, necessitating the weigh-
ing and close examinations of the presents etc. etc.”46 Gladstone agreed to the
plan. Ponsonby felt that there was no alternative, as the duke would be “saved
all trouble and expence [sic].”47 All changed with the defeat of Gladstone’s
Liberals in the General Election of January 1874. The matter was still outstand-
ing when Gladstone, on his resignation, left it to the new prime minister to
handle the matter. Disraeli, ever sensitive to his sovereign’s concerns, informed
the queen that he would:
by a Treasury Order, direct the Customs to let H. R. H.’s baggage pass without
examination, & then will immediately lay the order on the table of the House of
Commons. Nobody would then know how much duty was foregone; the delicacy
of not searching H. R. H.’s baggage, under the circumstances, would be appreci-
ated; & the question would be disposed of at a moment when the public mind
was in an amiable frame.48
45 Lord Colville to Sir Henry Ponsonby, January 29, 1874, RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/115.

46 Lord Colville to Sir Henry Ponsonby, February 12, 1874, RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/142.
47 Henry Ponsonby to Lord Colville, February 5, 1874, RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/129.
48 Benjamin Disraeli to Queen Victoria, February 28, 1874, RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/165.
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Ponsonby saw the benefit to the Duke of Edinburgh: “It certainly is a bold step
[…] but no doubt in the enthusiasm of the moment it will more probably be
applauded than condemned.”49
Ceremonies and Celebrations
While discussion of customs duties flew between the two capitals, plans were
going ahead to celebrate the nuptials across Britain. The format for celebration
on the wedding day and on the arrival of the couple from Russia was to closely
follow the ceremonial in 1863 when Princess Alexandra of Denmark travelled
from Copenhagen to marry the Prince of Wales, and included a celebratory ode
written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Meanwhile, an instruction was sent to the
Navy for a salute which could be seen from Osborne. It was agreed that HMS
Zealous and HMS Royal Alfred would be dressed, and rockets fired in Osborne
Bay on the wedding night, but there was to be no manning of the yards at this
time as this would be too dangerous. The Russian colours would be hoisted—
once everyone had agreed whether they were black, white, and yellow or black,
white, and orange—and the grand duchess’s standard was to be flown.
In the positive spirit of the marriage, gifts and decorations were offered by
the Russians, but the queen refused to allow the acceptance of any foreign
orders. This was discussed in Cabinet and in Parliament and all had agreed
that they could not be accepted, even on this occasion. However, on the day
before the wedding, Loftus and the Lord Chamberlain were offered snuff boxes
with portraits of the emperor. They asked the queen if they could accept, and
she agreed. The imperial generosity extended to Granville, causing a small stir
in Whitehall. As foreign secretary, it was felt that he could not accept an official
gift, and if he did, the queen would need to give a gift to Gorchakov, his oppo-
site number. Gladstone wrote that “A box to Gortchakoff after his abominable
conduct in the Black Sea business would I think, be really open to objection.”50
But the queen did not see a problem, for a refusal could be discourteous,
and revealed that she had already sent snuff boxes to both Gorchakov and
Adlerberg, who had each signed the treaty. Granville eventually refused the
gift, and Ponsonby wrote to him: “regretting your decision about refusing the
snuff box as HM looked upon it more in the light of a personal compliment
49 Henry Ponsonby to Queen Victoria, February 28, 1874, RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/167.

50 William Gladstone, January 29, 1874, RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/118.
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on the conclusion of the negotiations for a domestic event which in so far as it

affects the principal personages concerned has no political bearing.”51
Such challenges were put to one side for the ceremony and the celebrations
which followed. Events started with the arrival in St Petersburg of the Prince
and Princess of Wales and other key guests, in particular, the Crown Princes of
Prussia and Denmark. In all, eight future emperors, kings, and reigning dukes
attended the ceremony, as well as the ruling emperor and Prince Alfred’s uncle,
brother to the Prince Consort, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg. The first ceremonies
were the Epiphany Blessing of the waters of the river Neva and the Sunday
sermon preached by Dean Stanley at the Anglican Church in St Petersburg on
the theme of the Marriage Feast at Cana, which the Prince of Wales instructed
should be published. The day of the wedding itself was divided into four parts:
the Orthodox wedding, an Anglican service, a dinner, and a ball. That evening,
contrary to Russian custom, the couple were allowed three days of honey-
moon at Tsarskoe Selo before a punishing round of official events began in St
Petersburg and Moscow.
The central wedding scene in the cathedral of the Winter Palace was
recorded by Nicholas Chevalier in a finished painting in oil (fig. 12.6), and also
in sketches of the two ceremonies (figs. 12.7 and 12.8), which arrived at Osborne
at the end of January, accompanying a letter from Alfred to Victoria. The duke
wrote: “I hope to [be] able to send […] by tomorrow’s messenger two sketches
by Chevalier & in one of the Greek ceremony; by using the little additional
slips you will be able to follow the different parts of the service.”52 The queen
noted: “Endless letters including another from Augusta S. & one from Affie,
who sent me 2 very clever little sketches by Chevalier of the 2 marriages.”53
Chevalier was born to a Swiss father and Russian mother. He had trained
in Munich, and then worked with Ludwig Grüner, assisting on the design of a
setting for the Koh-i-Noor diamond, and a fountain at Osborne in the 1850s. He
came again to the attention of the royal family when he met Prince Alfred dur-
ing the latter’s tour of Australia in 1867. He accompanied the prince during the
later stages of the prince’s second tour of Australia in 1869, visiting the South
Seas, Far East, and Ceylon [Sri Lanka]. From Ceylon, Chevalier travelled to
England and made his base in London for the rest of his life. However, his time
in royal service was brief, with only four major works by him surviving in the
Royal Collection. His first commission was to paint the celebrations around
the Service of Thanksgiving in 1872 following the recovery of the Prince of
51 Lord Ponsonby to Lord Granville, February 2, 1874, RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/127.

52 Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh to Queen Victoria, January 28, 1874, RA VIC/ADDA20/1367.
53 Queen Victoria’s Journal, February 2, 1874.
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Figure 12.6 Nicholas Chevalier, The Marriage of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and Grand
Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, 23 January 1874, 1874–75, oil on canvas, 168.4 ×
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Figure 12.7 Nicholas Chevalier, The Anglican marriage service of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and
Maria Alexandrovna, 23 January 1874, 1874, pencil, pen and ink, coloured pencil
and watercolour, 20.4 × 25 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
Wales from typhoid. This commission was arranged by the Duke of Edinburgh,
who wrote to Sir Thomas Biddulph (Keeper of the Privy Purse) on January 12,
1873, after the Thanksgiving Service: “the Queen requested me to commission
Mr Chevalier to paint a picture for her of the procession, he is now at a loss to
know what price to name & feels great delicacy in the matter.”54 The issues of
cost and charges were to haunt Chevalier throughout his royal commissions,
and in particular, his record of the 1874 wedding. In January 1873, Richard
Redgrave, Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, reported to Sir Thomas that:
[Mr Chevalier] has produced a picture that ‘[…] gives a good representation […]
of a most interesting event and the work must have taken him many months of
labour, as well from the numerous figures introduced as from difficulties and
54 Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh to Sir Thomas Biddulph, January 12, 1873, RA PPTO/PP/QV/
MAIN/1873/13270.
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Figure 12.8 Nicholas Chevalier, The Orthodox marriage service of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh
and Maria Alexandrovna, 23 January 1874, 1874, pencil, pen and ink, watercolour,
bodycolour, with two flaps, 20.4 × 25 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
disadvantages […]’. However, although Redgrave proposed four hundred guineas

for the work were Chevalier asked for five hundred.55
Following the success of the painting of the Thanksgiving Service, Chevalier

was commissioned to record a number of other events, one being a review
held at Windsor during the visit of the Shah of Persia, which by chance also
had a Russian link, as the review was attended by the Tsesarevich Alexander
Alexandrovich and his wife, the Tsesarevna (Maria Feodorovna, the Princess of
Wales’s sister Dagmar), who were in Britain at the time.
There was a lack of clarity as to the terms of the marriage painting commis-
sion, in particular, whether Chevalier could charge separately for time spent
55 Richard Redgrave to Sir Thomas Biddulph, January 20, 1873, RA PPTO/PP/QV/MAIN/

1873/13270.
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working or whether this was considered to be included in the final cost. To

facilitate his work, Chevalier was given privileged access to the royal parties
and a prime location among the choir in the Winter Palace cathedral, from
which vantage he could witness and sketch the various stages of the Orthodox
Service. He was asked to work up his sketch of the Orthodox Service into a
finished oil and that of the Anglican Service to a finished watercolour. During
his visit, Chevalier stayed at the Hotel de France in St Petersburg and the cost
of his travel to and from Russia, as well as his accommodation and board, came
to £150. The understanding of the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales,
and Queen Victoria was that they would share Chevalier’s incidental costs—
at a cost to each of £50—and that they could, in addition, buy any sketches,
and the queen would purchase the finished painting. This interpretation was
thrown into confusion when Chevalier asked for an extra five guineas a day for
his forty-two working days of sketching in Russia at a total of £221 10/-, which
dogged the subsequent negotiations.56
Chevalier’s sketches were used for the main painting, and three finished
watercolours were also acquired from the artist, all of which are now in the
Royal Collection, in addition to a book of sketches (this last was acquired only
in the late twentieth century).57 This latter sketchbook of both rough and fin-
ished drawings was seemingly put together by the artist himself. It records a
variety of stages of the wedding ceremony itself, interiors and festivities in
Moscow and St Petersburg, the participants, their costumes and decorations,
and the troops on duty, as well as more frivolous times around the serious and
splendid court events (particularly ice skating by the assembled imperial and
royal families).
Visible in the depiction of the Anglican ceremony is the bride’s bouquet
passed to her by Lady Augusta Stanley as she entered the Alexander Hall, along
with a prayer book. Both were gifts to the bride from the queen. Affie and Marie
wrote after the ceremony: “we were much touched by receiving the prayer
books from you through Lady Augusta.”58 The bouquet contained myrtle sent
by Victoria to go in a bouquet of white flowers which she had commissioned.
White flowers were not easily available in St Petersburg in January, as the Dean
and other members of the visiting suite discovered when searching the city for
a florist selling the necessary blooms.
56 £221 10/- in pre-decimal British currency [i.e., two hundred and twenty-one pounds and
ten shillings].
57 The book of sketches was acquired for the Royal Collection by Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth II in 1986 (RCIN 926233–926298).
58 Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and Marie Alexandrovna to Queen Victoria, January 23, 1874,
RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/106.
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Following the ceremonies, messages flooded into Osborne, including one

from the emperor and empress: “nous recommandons Notre fille chère à votre
sollicitude maternelle.”59 The queen thanked Ponsonby for his congratula-
tions: “She has felt it a gt [great] trial to be absent from her Child’s marriage
today […] She has just heard from Pce [Prince] Alfred that both marriages were
over & very impressive.”60 A telegram arrived from the Prince of Wales: “Both
Ceremonies just over, very impressive Emperor and Empress much affected
but very calm, Sun came out just as first ceremony commenced. May it be a
good omen for the happiness of the newly married couple.”61 This divine bene-
diction was also noted by Lord Loftus: “on the termination of the sacramental
portion of the Greek rite a sunbeam lit up the cupola foreshadowing divine
blessing on the happy couple”—a shaft of light that is captured by Chevalier
in the painting.62
The menu card of the ten-course state dinner featured cherubs and the
names of Sorrento and Livadia, the two locations which had meant the most
in the courtship of the couple. It was designed by Charlemagne, the artist who
had previously recorded Affie’s first visit to Russia in 1862. The British ambas-
sador wrote to the Foreign Secretary:
Nothing can exceed the splendour of this Banquet. The display of magnificent
jewels, the brilliancy of the uniforms, the mass of ornamental gold and silver
plate, the beauty of the varied Sèvres china, added to the vocal talents of the
Patti, the Albani, [and] Nicolini who executed the most lovely airs during dinner
gave a charm and perfection to a scene which for its unrivalled beauty is almost
indescribable.63
After the dinner, there was a Bal Polonaise at the Winter Palace, of which
Loftus wrote: “I am told three thousand persons were present. No one but the
Imperial Family and the foreign ambassadors danced the Polonaise and the
only exception was that of Viscount Sydney [the Lord Chamberlain] who with
myself was specially invited to dance the Polonaise with the Imperial Bride.”64
The Bal Polonaise was a stately procession of the members of the imperial fam-
ily and the principal guests around the room to airs by Mikhail Glinka. The

60 Queen Victoria to Henry Ponsonby, January 23, 1874, RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/103.
61 Albert Edward, Prince of Wales to Queen Victoria, January 23, 1874, RA VIC/MAIN/
S/28/104.
62 Lord Loftus to Lord Granville, January 23, 1874, FO 83/834, TNA.
63 Ibid. “Patti,” “Albani,” and “Nicolini” refer to the opera singers Adelina Patti, Emma Albani,
and Ernesto Nicolini.
64 Ibid.
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press recorded that the event had been preceded by the arrival of the Crown
Prince and Princess of Prussia, at whose entrance the crowd of courtiers had
divided “like the Red Sea before the Israelites.”65 To ensure that the dance could
proceed, Count Adlerberg, having signed the marriage treaty the day before,
had the task of ensuring that the ceremonies went smoothly and, in part, to
create the avenue down which the promenading couples would process. He
was recorded in the full splendour of his court uniform by Chevalier in one
of the ancillary watercolours marking the celebrations—one that the artist
did not supply until nearly two years after the event. Chevalier also recorded
the splendour of the imperial ball and a Review of the Household Guards by
the emperor and assembled royalty in the days after the wedding in finished
watercolours.66
On January 24 the emperor’s representative, General Perovskii, departed St
Petersburg to visit Queen Victoria to announce the marriage, as was custom.
He arrived at Osborne on the Saturday and was received in audience: “Received
in the Drawing Room Gen. Count Peroffsky, sent by the Emperor to announce
the marriage, & to bring me autograph letters from the Emperor & Empress,
as also Affie & Marie. Ct [Count] Peroffsky is a tall oldish man, rather stiff, &
certainly not very communicative.”67 Perovskii in return received letters from
the queen, with which he immediately started for St Petersburg. In this way
honour and protocol were satisfied, as the emperor had told the queen about
the marriage, and the queen needed to tell the emperor. The Private Secretary
wrote: “The Queen thinks that as the Duke of Edinburgh is a British Prince
and brings over the Grand Duchess as Duchess of Edinburgh to belong to this
country Her Majesty ought to send the usual announcement to the Emperor
of Russia.”68 Thus Perovskii would report to the emperor the marriage of the
emperor’s daughter to the Duke of Edinburgh in a ceremony which both had
witnessed only a few days earlier.
Following the events in Russia, all attention turned to the arrival of the
couple in England on March 7. The queen wanted the streets in Gravesend,
Windsor, and later, London to be lined with troops and for the arrival to be
similar to that of the Princess of Wales in 1863. The couple travelled from
St Petersburg via Berlin, where they reacquainted themselves with Richter.
Despite the tedious nature of some of the sittings at Livadia the previous year,
as expressed by the subject and her (now) spouse, there appears to have been a
65 Essex Standard, January 30, 1874.

66 The Bal Polonais at the Winter Palace, St Petersburg, 23 January 1874 (The Royal Collection,
RCIN 451905); The Grand Review of the Household Guards of the Emperor of Russia at
St Petersburg, 26 January 1874 (The Royal Collection, RCIN 451907).
68 Sir Henry Ponsonby to Lord Tenterden, February 10, 1874, RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/139.
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Figure 12.9 Nicholas Chevalier, The arrival of the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh at Windsor,
7 March 1874, 1874, pencil, pen and ink, watercolour, bodycolour, 24.4 × 29.4 cm,
warmth towards the artist; their visit was described as “quite unexpected,” and
they spent quite some time in the studio of the painter being shown the com-
mencement and sketches of several of his other pictures.69
From Gravesend the newly-weds travelled to Windsor, where the bride and
mother-in-law finally met, again recorded by Chevalier in a watercolour paint-
ing (fig. 12.9). In preparation for the event, Prince Alfred wrote to his mother
to confirm what colour his wife should wear. The Princess of Wales suggested
a dark chocolate, but the duke wondered if his mother might prefer a lighter
colour with a white bonnet. In the end, the new duchess wore a light blue dress
with a long train and a white tulle bonnet with white roses and, diplomatically,
the spray of white heather which Victoria had sent ahead to Antwerp on the
Royal Yacht that was to bring them to England.
69 “The Duchess of Edinburgh and the Painter Richter.”
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Windsor was “en fête,” the town lined with troops. The queen noted that
there was “a very pretty Triumphal Arch and the town was very full & com-
pletely decked out with flags, flowers, festoons & inscriptions, some of which
were in Russian.”70 Arriving at the Castle, the couple were taken to their rooms,
which had been redecorated in their honour with their initials in the panel-
ling and photographed for posterity. A State Dinner was held—the first at
Windsor since 1860—and the queen and the grand duchess began to become
acquainted. The new duchess showed the queen her jewellery; the queen
admired her furs and wardrobe, part of the enormous trousseau that she had
received, which had now been successfully imported with the help of Disraeli.
On March 12, the royal party made its way to London, by train to Paddington,
and then in an open carriage procession in driving snow (which the queen
did not mind, as they had “warm fur cloaks”) through the streets lined with
troops.71 The route took them down Grand Junction Road, Edgware Road,
Oxford Street, Regent Street, and Waterloo Place. By taking in Charing Cross
and Horse Guards parade, as opposed to Pall Mall, the opportunity was pro-
vided for more spectators to watch the procession. The queen recorded large
crowds of well-wishers and that there was much enthusiasm: “The decorations
were very pretty […]. One was ‘Welcome fair Russ.’ In one place numbers of
nosegays were thrown from windows by ladies but none reached our carriage.
The crush at Trafalgar Square was tremendous.”72
At Buckingham Palace the queen and the newly-weds appeared on the bal-
cony. It was only the fifth time that the balcony had been used since it was
erected. Ironically, the two previous occasions also had a Russian connection,
but one less positive in the context of British-Russian relations: in 1854, when
Victoria had watched the Guards leave for the Crimea, and in 1856, when she
had welcomed them back. The connection would not have been lost on the
queen; indeed, the long shadow of the Crimean War hung over the festivities,
even making its way into the first stanza of Tennyson’s celebratory ode.73 Unlike
that written for the royal wedding of 1863, with its line “Sea-King’s daughter
from over the sea, Alexandra!” celebrating the new Princess of Wales and con-
taining seventeen exclamation marks, the poem written in 1874 contains only
six exclamation marks. It begins with a reference not to the bride, but to her
grandfather, Nicholas I, and her father:
70 Queen Victoria’s Journal, March 7, 1874.

71 Queen Victoria’s Journal, March 12, 1874.
72 Ibid.
73 For the complete ode and further commentary on Tennyson’s Russian connections, see
Chapter 7 of this volume.
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THE SON of him with whom we strove for power—

Whose will is lord thro’ all his world-domain—
Who made the serf a man, and burst his chain—
Has given our prince his own imperial Flower,
Alexandrovna.
This dormant concern carried through to the visit of the emperor in May 1874
to see his daughter. Although the streets were crowded, there was a tension,
one subtly played on by the queen, who moved the recently-acquired paint-
ing by Lady Butler—The Roll Call, depicting the guards after the Battle of
Inkerman—to Buckingham Palace during the emperor’s visit so that he could
see it and consider the impact of war on soldiers and a nation, and the joint
responsibility of monarchs to their peoples.74
In the months after the emperor’s return to Russia, the challenges and frus-
trations for Chevalier as artist and Queen Victoria as patron continued, with
the completion of the main painting of the wedding and the preparation of a
now lost sketch of the arrival of the emperor at Windsor. For the main painting,
Chevalier sent the queen a sketch in July. He asked that it be submitted for her
approval with the request that:
As the number of portraits of the court necessarily to be introduced besides

those of the Imperial and royal families is considerable, I would earnestly beg
the Queen’s gracious permission to enlarge the future picture a triffle [sic] over
the present size of the Sketch so as to enable me to do full justice to so fine and
important a subject.75
At the same time, he forwarded “a pen-and-ink sketch of the arrival of the

Emperor of Russia in Windsor, I sincerely hope it will meet with Her Majesty’s
gracious approval.”76 Of the main painting, the response was that: “The Queen
approves of the sketch of the marriage & will be glad to know how much larger
you desire to make it.” But of the sketch the response was not as positive: “H.M.
is not yet altogether satisfied with the sketch of the Emperor’s arrival & will
suggest some change later.”77 The proposal for the extension was reported to
Sir Thomas Biddulph, Keeper of the Privy Purse, along with the artist’s thanks
74 Elizabeth Southerden Butler, Lady Butler, The Roll Call, 1874, oil on canvas, 93.3 × 183.5 cm,
The Royal Collection, RCIN 405915.
75 Nicholas Chevalier to Sir Thomas Biddulph, July 15, 1874, RA PPTO/QV/PP/MAIN/
1874/17496.
76 Ibid.
77 Sir Thomas Biddulph to Nicholas Chevalier, July 17, 1874, RA PPTO/QV/PP/MAIN/
1874/17496.
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for the honour extended to him: “to treat the subject of the marriage of the
Duke of Edinburgh on a scale commensurate with the importance of the sub-
ject; an addition of about six inches to the height and the width of the present
sketch will enable me to introduce the various important personages of the
Russian court suggested to me at St Petersbourgh [sic].”78 This was an increase
that the queen had approved.
The artist attended upon the queen at Osborne later that month, possibly at
the time that the Duke of Edinburgh visited to discuss the arrangements for the
planned visit of the Empress of Russia later in the year; the painting was first
delivered to Windsor in March 1875. The painting had only just arrived when it
was also wanted for the Royal Academy exhibition that year. The Keeper of the
Privy Purse wrote to the Academy’s president asking that the deadline for the
painting’s arrival be extended: “The Queen has given leave to M. Chevalier to
exhibit his picture of The Duke of Edinburgh’s marriage and would be glad for
a few days extension to be given him as H. M. had it sent down here today.”79
Although it had been delivered in the spring, Chevalier was still working on
the painting in November of that year: “since the closing of the Royal Academy
Exhibition I have devoted much time upon the picture of the Marriage of H. R.
H. the Duke of Edinburgh, endeavouring to deserve the Queen’s approval.”80
From November 1878 it hung at Windsor for the rest of the queen’s reign, only
finding its long-term home four years after the wedding.
As his payment for the painting Chevalier initially asked for £1,000. It was
believed that, unsure of what price to charge, he had consulted, among oth-
ers, artists William Frith, James Sant, and Edward Ward, who had advised
that this was an appropriate fee. However, the Keeper of the Privy Purse was
advised that “he [Chevalier] bases his price more up[on] the time the picture
occupied and the actual expense it put him to than upon the opinion of these
Gentlemen.”81 In 1875, some months after the painting had been delivered,
Chevalier sent his invoice:
78 Nicholas Chevalier to Sir Thomas Biddulph, July 18, 1874, RA PPTO/QV/PP/MAIN/

1874/17496.
79 Sir Thomas Biddulph to Sir Francis Grant (President of the Royal Academy), March 31,
1875, RA PPTO/QV/PP/MAIN/1875/18304.
80 Nicholas Chevalier to Sir Thomas Biddulph, November 23, 1875, RA PPTO/QV/PP/MAIN/
1875/18304.
81 Lord Colville to Sir Thomas Biddulph, January 5, 1875, RA PPTO/QV/PP/MAIN/1874/17496.
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I beg you to submit to Her Majesty’s most gracious consideration the amount
of £800 for the picture painted by command of the Queen, representing the
Marriage of H. R. H. the Duke of Edinburgh. Part of the time employed in
St Petersbourgh [sic] and the expense of the frame, packing, etc. are included in
the amount.82
The price of the work, the time taken for its production, and Chevalier’s style
meant that he would not be commissioned by Victoria again. His name was
proposed to record Prince Leopold’s wedding in 1882 but was rejected: “I am
afraid Chevalier is much objected to as to style and price,” stated a telegram
from the queen’s Private Secretary.83 The sketch of Alexander II’s arrival never
met with the queen’s approval and its whereabouts today are unknown—it is
believed lost.
Richter, on the other hand, had greater success with future royal commis-
sions. Although he received no further patronage from Victoria, he was com-
missioned to paint, among others, the German emperor and empress Wilhelm I
and Augusta, and his work continued to be exhibited in Berlin, as noted in the
correspondence of the Crown Princess to Victoria. The princess also informed
her mother of the artist’s death in April 1884: “Death has been very active here
amongst celebrities & also friends of ours; – the painter “Richter,” the poet
“Gerbel” […].”84 In their own way, the events around each artist, their works,
and their reception by the court echoed to a degree the fact that the marriage
did not of itself establish harmony between the two courts and cultures, nor
the families. The “Russian flower,” although welcomed, was never able fully to
settle. Chevalier and Richter’s works in the Royal Collection and the trials of
commission, execution, and acceptance curiously echoed and reflected the
challenges faced by family, governments, and artists in establishing connec-
tions between Britain and Russia.
82 Nicholas Chevalier to Sir Thomas Biddulph, December 30, 1875, RA PPTO/QV/PP/MAIN/

1874/17496.
83 Sir Henry Ponsonby to Doyne Courtney Bell, Secretary of the Privy Purse April 19, 1882,
RA PPTO/PP/QV/PP1/3/29.
84 Victoria, Princess Royal to Queen Victoria, April 12, 1884, RA VIC/MAIN/Z/37/27.
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Queen Victoria’s Journal, RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W): July 11, 17, 1873; August 13, 1873;
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Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh to Queen Victoria, January 28, 1874, RA VIC/ADDA/20/1367.
Maria Alexandrovna to Queen Victoria, July 19, 1873, RA VIC/ADDA/20/1421.
Maria Alexandrovna to Queen Victoria, September 4, 1873, RA VIC/ADDA/20/1423.
Maria Alexandrovna to Queen Victoria, October 15, 1873, RA VIC/ADDA/20/1425.
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Queen Victoria to Lord Granville, December 12, 1873, RA VIC/MAIN/S/28/11.
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Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh to Sir Thomas Biddulph, January 12, 1873, RA PPTO/PP/
QV/MAIN/1873/13270.
Richard Redgrave to Sir Thomas Biddulph, January 20, 1873, RA PPTO/PP/QV/MAIN/
1873/13270.
Nicholas Chevalier to Sir Thomas Biddulph, July 15, 1874, RA PPTO/QV/PP/MAIN/
1874/17496.
Sir Thomas Biddulph to Nicholas Chevalier, July 17, 1874, RA PPTO/QV/PP/MAIN/
1874/17496.
Nicholas Chevalier to Sir Thomas Biddulph, July 18, 1874, RA PPTO/QV/PP/MAIN/
1874/17496.
Lord Colville to Sir Thomas Biddulph, January 5, 1875, RA PPTO/QV/PP/MAIN/
1874/17496.
Sir Thomas Biddulph to Sir Francis Grant (President of the Royal Academy), March 31,
1875, RA PPTO/QV/ PP/MAIN/18304.
Nicholas Chevalier to Sir Thomas Biddulph, November 23, 1875, RA PPTO/QV/PP/
MAIN/1875/18304.
Nicholas Chevalier to Sir Thomas Biddulph, December 30, 1875, RA PPTO/QV/PP/
MAIN/1875/17496.
Sir Henry Ponsonby to Doyne Courtney Bell, Secretary of the Privy Purse April 19, 1882,
RA PPTO/PP/QV/PP1/3/29.
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The National Archives

Russia Treaty: marriage between the Duke of Edinburgh and the Grand Duchess Marie
of Russia, Article III, FO 94/639, The National Archives, Kew, London.
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London.
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https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1873-07-31/debates/31563af3-5a3b-4b29-
96cb-c55597651a1b/SecondReading?highlight=civil%20list%20marriage%20
russia#contribution-300b7b16-2c39-4875-8d88-4b94d9e8709e, accessed June 30,
2021.
[Köler, Johann]. “Ivan Petrovich Këler, Professor Zhivopisi, 1826–1886, Prodolzhenie.”
Russkaia Starina 52 (1886): 333–78. https://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/Индекс:1886,_
Russkaya_starina,_Vol_51,52._№10-12_and_name_index_for_vol.49-52.pdf, accessed
July 2, 2021.
Secondary Sources
Essex Standard, January 30, 1874.
“The Duchess of Edinburgh and the Painter Richter,” Newcastle Daily Journal, March 14,
“Putin podaril Ermitazhu komplekt liturgicheskikh predmetov docheri Aleksandra II,”
April 27, 2021, https://smotrim.ru/article/2556187#vgtrk_player_2556187, accessed
June 18, 2021.
The London Gazette, no. 24058 (January 27, 1874): 340.
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Chapter 13
Images of Nicholas II: (Mis-)interpreting the

Last Tsar
Wendy Slater
Introduction: A Modern Way of Seeing
In 1896, shortly after the birth of Olga, their first child, the imperial Russian
couple, Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, had an
appointment at the St Petersburg studio of Sergei Levitskii, a fashionable soci-
ety photographer. Nicholas recorded the event in his diary:
At 2.15 we went to Levitskii’s studio—it was Levitskii fils, because the old man is
sick. They took all kinds of photographs: us with our daughter, then the two of us
together, and then each of us on our own. We must trust that an hour and a half
of such torment will produce something worthwhile.1
Though he grumbled about the process, Nicholas was acutely aware of the
importance of creating and disseminating a particular image of himself as
ruler. At the end of the nineteenth century and in the context of an emerging
consumerist society, new technologies of photography and mass reproduction
allowed the Russian emperor, like his British relatives, to deploy photographs
of himself and his family to popularise his reign. For both monarchies, photo-
graphs were also a way of recording and strengthening family bonds and were
frequently exchanged as gifts. Indeed, the Royal Collection in London contains
at least half a dozen photographs from the 1896 Levitskii series, presumably
sent by the suffering sitters to Queen Victoria or other members of the British
royal family (fig. 13.1). Nicholas and his family were also keen amateur photog-
raphers, avidly documenting their daily lives, and these pictures form part of
the corpus of images of the Romanovs that are today in the public domain and
treasured as evidence of the imperial family’s essential humanity.
1 “V 2 ¼ poekhali snimat’sia k Levitskomu – synu, potomu chto starik bolen. Fotografii delalis’
vsiacheskie: vtroem s dochkoiu, vdvoem i v odinochku. Nado nadeiat’sia, chto iz polutoracha-
sovogo mucheniia chto-nibud’ da udastsia.” Nicholas II, diary entry for May 3, 1896, Dnevniki
Nikolaia II 1894. Nachato v Vindzore, http://tsaarinikolai.com/tekstit/Dnevniki_Nikolaja.pdf,
accessed August 2, 2019. Sergei Levitskii (1819–98) was one of the earliest and most authorita-
tive figures in the history of Russian photography.

352 Wendy Slater
Figure 13.1 Sergei Levitskii, Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia, Alexandra Feodorovna, Empress
of Russia, and Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, 1896, gelatin silver print, 14.5 ×
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Images of Nicholas II 353
Figure 13.2 Ernest Sandau, Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia, and King George V, May 24, 1913,
gelatin silver print, 22.1 × 15.5 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
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354 Wendy Slater
The multiplicity of images of the last emperor, especially those tender fam-
ily snapshots which in other circumstances might have remained in closed
archives, gives Nicholas and his family a presence and an immediacy that belie
their historical role, freezing them in a past that has been destroyed and yet
seems real. As Susan Sontag summarises:
In the modern way of seeing, reality is first of all appearance—which is always

changing. A photograph records appearance. The record of photography is the
record of change, of the destruction of the past. Being modern (and if we have
the habit of looking at photographs, we are, by definition, modern), we under-
stand all identities to be constructions. The only irrefutable reality—and our
best clue to identity—is how people appear.2
This chapter discusses the ways in which images of Nicholas and his immediate
family were created and manipulated, and appropriated and consumed, at the
time of their making and subsequently. The images were frequently deployed
for specific purposes, but the “results” anticipated by Nicholas were not always
what he desired. Through the exchange of gifts in the form of photographs,
dynastic ties with the wider family were strengthened. However, these dynas-
tic connections did not translate into diplomatic advantage: Russian autocracy
was viewed with suspicion in Britain and when the Romanovs were deposed
George V refused them asylum.
During his reign, Nicholas and his advisors emulated the techniques of the
British monarchy, attempting to build positive publicity for the imperial fam-
ily through images of the sovereign. However, unlike in Britain, there was a
significant disconnect in Russia between the goals of an activist, autocratic
monarchy and those of a discontented, modernising society. Thus, the images
of Nicholas were easily subverted by his opponents to achieve very different
ends than those that had been intended. In the century after the killing of
the Romanov family by the Bolsheviks in Ekaterinburg in 1918, the images of
Nicholas, Alexandra, and their children have been reproduced and reinvented
multiple times. In post-Soviet Russia, these images have been deployed to pro-
mote the political and moral goals of the influential Russian Orthodox Church.
Meanwhile, in the broader global and cross-cultural context of digital media,
romanticised images of Russia’s last emperor and his family have been given
a significant role online in furthering the soft power ambitions of the Russian
state.
2 Susan Sontag, “Photography: A Little Suma,” in Susan Sontag, At the Same Time: Essay and
Speeches (London: Penguin, 2008), 125.
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Family Bonds
There were particularly close dynastic ties between the ruling families of
late imperial Russia and the British constitutional monarchy.3 Nicholas and
Alexandra were each separately related to the British royal family. Empress
Alexandra was a grandchild of Queen Victoria (Alexandra’s mother, Alice,
was Victoria’s second daughter); Nicholas was nephew-by-marriage to King
Edward VII through his (Nicholas’s) mother, Dagmar of Denmark (Empress
Maria Feodorovna of Russia after her marriage to Alexander III), who was the
sister of Edward’s consort, Queen Alexandra. This meant that both Nicholas
and Alexandra were—independently—first cousins to King George V.
The exchange of photographs—both the formal, studio pictures and
the informal family snapshots—served to reinforce such family bonds.
Photographs could even be said to substitute for the presence of an extended
family separated by geographical distance, a phenomenon observed by soci-
ologist Pierre Bourdieu.4 Given the strong dynastic links between members
of the European royal houses, this photographic exchange, which on one level
simply strengthened the emotional attachments of an extended family, on
another level inevitably leached into performing a diplomatic role, reaffirming
the ties between states.
In the photographs that record the gatherings of the extended family—the
Romanovs and their British relatives—we see, then, the same impulse towards
“the solemnization and immortalization” of such meetings as that identified
by Bourdieu in his study of the French peasantry in the 1960s.5 The very act
of being photographed was frequently noted by the participants as an event.
For example, on his visit with Alexandra and their daughter to Balmoral in
September 1896 to see “Granny” (Queen Victoria), Nicholas recorded in his
diary “being taken” [i.e., photographed] in the uniform […] of the [Royal]
Scots’ Greys”—the regiment to which Victoria had appointed him colonel-in-
chief in 1894 upon the occasion of his marriage to Alexandra. He then recorded
being “taken in a group” with the rest of the family.6 And in May 1913 King
3 As Stephen Patterson discusses in Chapter 12, the year 1874 marked the beginning of a period
of closer relations, when Queen Victoria’s son, Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, married Maria
Alexandrovna, daughter of Alexander II.
4 Pierre Bourdieu, Photography: A Middle-brow Art (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990).
5 Ibid., 20.
6 “Utrom snimalsia v mundire i siurtuke Scots Greys. K zavtraku priekhalo semeistvo iz Mar
Lodge, snimalis’ gruppoi.” Nicholas II, diary entry for September 17, 1896, Dnevniki Imperatora
Nikolaia II 1894. Nachato v Vindzore, http://tsaarinikolai.com/tekstit/Dnevniki_Nikolaja.pdf,
accessed August 2, 2019.
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356 Wendy Slater
George V noted in his diary that he had been “done with Nicky” [i.e., photo-
graphed with Emperor Nicholas II] on the occasion of the wedding of Princess
Victoria Louise of Prussia, daughter of George and Nicholas’s mutual cousin,
Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, which, incidentally, was the last occasion on
which the three cousins (George, Nicholas, and Wilhelm) would meet in per-
son (fig. 13.2).7
The act of being photographed was a means of strengthening personal
bonds, and not just family ones. Indeed, Nicholas regularly recorded in his
diary the occasions on which he was photographed with Russian and Allied
officers at the Imperial Army headquarters during the war. In the case of the
cousins “Nicky” and “Georgie” their striking physical similarity underlined the
significance of this act, as can be seen in other, less formal photographs of the
pair. In the pictures taken of the two cousins during the Russian state visit to
Cowes, Isle of Wight, in 1909, their similar nautical clothing and shared pose
makes them seem more like a pair of upper-class European gentlemen on a
sailing trip than emperor and heir apparent (fig. 13.3).
The creation of photographs, then, did not just strengthen family ties and
the bonds of state, it also highlighted the shared visual culture and common
codes of behaviour of the two royal families. However, as explored below, this
shared visual culture did not mean that the two monarchies shared a common
political understanding.
Public and Private Pictures
The Russian imperial couple were acutely aware of the importance of their
public image and the role of photographs in creating it. Thus, formal, posed
compositions of Nicholas and his family, taken to mark a specific occasion and
created for the widest possible public circulation, were produced and distrib-
uted in their millions during his reign. Thanks to recent developments in opti-
cal technology and advances in the techniques of reproduction, these images
could be made available for mass consumption by a rapidly urbanising and
increasingly commercial society.8 Yet such public photographs, however care-
fully they were staged for publicity purposes, frequently also made their way
8 Steve Smith and Catriona Kelly, “Commercial Culture and Consumerism,” in Constructing
Russian Culture in the Age of Revolution 1881–1940, ed. Catriona Kelly and David Shepherd
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 106.
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Figure 13.3 Arthur William Debenham, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia (1868–1918) and George,
Prince of Wales, August 4, 1909, gelatin silver print, 23.9 × 17.2 cm, Royal Collection
Trust, London.
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358 Wendy Slater
into the private albums of the extended Romanov family as gifts with a per-
sonal dedication from the subject to the recipient.
In 1914 Empress Alexandra wrote to her maternal aunt, Princess Louise
(Duchess of Argyll), enclosing in her letter ten recent photographs of her four
daughters “to give you an idea what they look like.”9 These images were off-
prints from the idyllic series of studio photographs of the grand duchesses,
Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia, recently taken by the St Petersburg soci-
ety photographers Boissonnas & Eggler (fig. 13.4). It is tempting to speculate
that one reason for sending the photographs was to begin matchmaking for
the two elder girls. Alexandra had been brought up with close involvement
from Granny after her mother died, and thus, as a product of Victoria’s court,
she may well have desired to further the dynastic ties between Russian and
British royalty. These images of the grand duchesses were widely disseminated
at the time and are today among the most frequently reproduced photographs
of the Romanov girls in illustrated books and on websites. The importance of
these specific prints, however, lies in the accompanying letter, which not only
gives them a specific provenance but also indicates the way in which images
intended for wide dissemination could be given additional meaning when
they were presented as a personal gift.
Whilst the photographs given by Empress Alexandra to her aunt were
simply enclosed in a personal letter, studio portraits like these might also be
packaged as luxury items. As such, they would be presented within an elabo-
rate and expensive frame which constituted part of the gift. For example, in
August 1898 Nicholas and Alexandra gave a member of the British royal family
a formal photograph—now in the Royal Collection (fig. 13.5)—of the empress
in Russian court dress. To house it, they jointly purchased a tiny Fabergé frame
of red guilloché enamel and four-colour gold. Taken earlier that year, the pho-
tograph was widely reproduced in Russia as part of the image-making of the
imperial couple.10
A larger component of the corpus of several thousand images of Nicholas
and his family comprises the photographs that they, and their immediate
entourage, took of themselves, recording their participation in everyday activi-
ties. This was a function both of modernity and of their social status, for the
Romanovs were no exception to the craze for photography that absorbed late
nineteenth-century Europeans, and which allowed the wealthy to record their
lives “with a precision and a fascination that no civilisation had displayed
9 De Guitaut and Patterson, Russia: Art, Royalty, 428–29.

10 Ibid., 338.
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Figure 13.4 Boissonnas & Eggler, Grand Duchesses Maria (1899–1918), Tatiana (1897–1918),
Anastasia (1901–1918), and Olga (1895–1918) of Russia, 1914, platinum print, 12.6 ×
9 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
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360 Wendy Slater
Figure 13.5 Johann Victor Aarne, Frame with a photograph of Empress Alexandra
Feodorovna, before 1896, silver-gilt, guilloché enamel and four-colour gold, ivory,
11 × 6.8 × 1.5 cm (whole object), Royal Collection Trust, London.
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before.”11 Many of these private photographs would have been unsuitable for
public viewing during Nicholas’s reign: for example, a picture in which the
emperor is shown teaching his youngest daughter to smoke;12 a picture from
the family gathering at Darmstadt, Hesse, in 1899, where a young Emperor
Nicholas pulls faces and fools around with his cousins;13 or the later photo-
graph of the heir to the throne, sick in bed in 1912, being nursed by his mother.14
Even so, there were some private photographs that did become public images.
In 1916, for example, one of Alexandra’s snapshots of Alexei, wearing military
uniform and standing rather stiffly beside his spaniel, was printed as a post-
card and sold to raise money for the war charities that Alexandra patronised.15
At its simplest, the creation, ordering, and preservation of the Romanov
family photographs was an act of remembering as well as a social activity:
numerous diary entries by Nicholas record a happy evening spent pasting pho-
tographs into albums, frequently helped by his daughters. These albums con-
stituted the Romanov family archive, and it accompanied them into Siberian
exile after the emperor’s abdication in February 1917, perhaps providing a
therapeutic memory of better days. Indeed, before departing the palace at
Tsarskoe Selo for Tobolsk, Nicholas gathered together old photographs taken
two decades earlier on his tour of the Far East as tsarevich (1890–91), “so that
I can put them in order during my leisure time.”16 At least sixteen photograph
albums, bound in Moroccan leather, were recovered from the Romanovs’
last place of residence and the site of their execution, the Ipatiev House in
Ekaterinburg.
Today the largest collection of albums and loose photographs of the
Romanovs is held by the Russian State Archive [Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv
11 David Cannadine, History in Our Time (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press,
1998), 132.
12 “Remarkable private pictures of the Russian royal family found in a remote Urals
museum,” The Siberian Times, May 8, 2013, http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/
remarkable-private-pictures-of-the-russian-royal-family-found-in-a-remote-urals-
museum/, accessed August 2, 2019.
13 Nicholas II, Prince Nicholas of Greece, Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich, Darmstadt, 1899.
Russian State Archive [Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (“GARF”)], Al’bom
liubitel’skikh fotosnimkov sem’i Romanovykh i ikh rodstvennikov i priblizhennykh, 1899–
1900 gg., http://statearchive.ru/437?page=9, accessed August 2, 2019.
14 Alexander Bokhanov, The Romanovs: Love, Power and Tragedy, trans. Lyudmila
Xenofontova (London: Leppi Publications, 1993), 223.
15 Charlotte Zeepvat, The Camera and the Tsars: The Romanov Family in Photographs (Stroud:
Sutton Publishing, 2004), 199.
16 Diary entry for August 14, 1917, in Nicholas II, Dnevniki imperatora Nikolaia II. Tom II.
1905–1917, https://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/1029309/Nikolay_-_Dnevniki_
imperatora_Nikolaya_II._Tom_II._1905-1917.html#n_45, accessed August 2, 2019.
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362 Wendy Slater
Rossiiskoi Federatsii or “GARF”], with another significant holding in the

Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive at Krasnogorsk [Rossiiskii
gosudarstvennyi arkhiv kinofotodokumentov or “RGAKFD”]. But smaller collec-
tions, belonging to the imperial family or their entourage, were left scattered
across the former Soviet Union. Even today, small new caches of photographs
occasionally come to light, such as the envelope with Romanov photographs
discovered in August 2018 during a house renovation in Yessentuki, North
Caucasus; the photographs came from a member of the family bodyguard, who
was photographed with them and to whom the daughters gave signed photo-
graphs of themselves.17 Other pictures made their way to the west with Russian
émigrés, such as the important collection of six Romanov family albums and
loose photographs that was brought out of Russia by Alexandra’s confidante,
Anna Vyrubova.18
Shared Visual Culture
Beyond the Romanovs’ personal photograph albums, pictures of the imperial

family are found in albums made by members of their extended family, such
as that composed by Queen Alexandra to record the British state visit to Reval
[Tallinn] in 1908 (fig. 13.6).19 This album—in fact, more a scrapbook—includes
photographs taken by members of both the British and Russian delegations,
as well as souvenir menus, autographs, the text of formal speeches, and other
memorabilia.20
The exchange of photographic gifts between the Russian and British
monarchies—whether formally posed pictures or intimate family snapshots—
and the attention both paid to composing their family photograph albums,
demonstrates a shared visual culture. Similarly, both monarchies used pho-
tographs to popularise the image of the sovereign through mass consumer
culture. This was a relatively new practice that had emerged in Britain during
17 Paul Gilbert, “Unknown Photos of the Imperial family Discovered in the Caucasus,”
January 29, 2019, at “Nicholas II: Emperor, Tsar, Saint.” https://tsarnicholas.org/2019/01/29/
unknown-photos-of-the-imperial-family-discovered-in-the-caucasus/, accessed
August 2, 2019.
18 This collection is now at Yale University, as part of the “Romanov collection” in the
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. See: Romanov collection. General Collection.
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, https://archives.yale.edu/
repositories/11/resources/683, accessed August 2, 2019.
19 Reval reverted to its original, Estonian name in 1918.
20 De Guitaut and Patterson, Russia: Art, Royalty, 206–07.
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Figure 13.6 Album of Queen Alexandra, State Visit to Russia, Reval, June 5–14, 1908, gelatin
silver prints, 28.1 × 36.8 × 5.5 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
the last quarter of the nineteenth century and that by the turn of the century
had become well established. In Russia, such techniques were emulated dur-
ing the reign of Nicholas II and developed rapidly in the fast-changing and
swiftly modernising society of the period. Yet this shared visual culture and
use of similar publicity techniques masked fundamental differences between
the two monarchies.
Popularising the image of the British monarchy had been part of the process
of recasting the institution in the late nineteenth century, as the sovereign’s
political power waned with the extension of the franchise and the expansion
of parliamentary authority. Compensating for the diminution in its power, the
British royal family managed to reinvent itself so that, by the time of Victoria’s
Diamond Jubilee in 1897 and Edward VII’s coronation in 1902, royal ritual and
all its trappings had turned the monarchy into “a unifying symbol of perma-
nence and national community.” Consumerism and ceremony—what David
Cannadine describes as “mugs and medals […] music and magnificence”—
were deployed in celebration of this relatively impotent, but now genuinely
popular institution.21
In Russia, a similar dilution of monarchical power had ostensibly come about
with the political changes wrought by the 1905 Revolution. With these changes
21 David Cannadine, “The context, performance and meaning of ritual: The British monar-
chy and the ‘invention of tradition’, c. 1820–1977,” in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric
Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 122.
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364 Wendy Slater
came the reinvention of the sovereign’s image, or what Richard Wortman calls
his “scenario of power:” the narrative of Nicholas’s reign, consciously created
through visual culture and ceremony, that legitimised his rule.22 Yet Nicholas
and the Russian court never accepted that the autocracy could be restricted by
a representative body. Thus, after 1906, when the creation of the State Duma
curtailed the “autocratic and unlimited” power that Nicholas had inherited, a
new “scenario of power” was developed that emphasised Nicholas’s “spiritual
bond” with the true Russian people, a bond between pious “father-tsar” and
the simple peasants, who had no need of elected representation.23 Far from
acquiescing in the creation of a more limited, ceremonial role, Nicholas and
his court developed a new “political vision that sought to resituate legitimate
state power in the person of the emperor,” whose right to rule was justified by
his personal qualities of piety, duty, orderliness, and paternalism.24 It was a
deliberate attempt to demonstrate that the Russian monarchy was “an active
force, building and maintaining an empire, educating and uplifting the popu-
lace, and establishing legality and order,” and that the Duma was therefore ille-
gitimate and unnecessary.25 The visual culture that accompanied this political
vision was therefore centred upon the person of the monarch.
This vision of an active and interventionist monarchy and a personally
meritorious monarch shaped the celebrations devised for the major patriotic
anniversaries after 1905, including the bicentenary of the Battle of Poltava
(1909) and the centenary of Borodino (1912). The most significant anniversary,
however, was the tercentenary of the Romanov dynasty, commemorated by
national celebrations in 1913. Modern media—photography, cinema, and com-
mercial consumer culture—were deployed to publicise the tercentenary of a
pre-modern dynasty, which was now presenting itself as a dynamic force for
Russia’s development. Nearly seven million copies of books and pamphlets fea-
turing the imperial family were published for the tercentenary. This was prob-
ably sufficient to reach most people, for though the majority of the country’s
peasants (who constituted eighty-five per cent of the 160-million-strong popu-
lation) could not read, it was common for literate or newly literate peasants to
22 Richard S. Wortman, Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy.

Volume Two: From Alexander II to the Abdication of Nicholas II (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
23 Richard S. Wortman, Visual Texts, Ceremonial Texts, Texts of Exploration: Collected Articles
on the Representation of Russian Monarchy (Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2013),
71–72.
24 Mark Steinberg, “Russia’s fin de siècle, 1900–1914,” in The Cambridge History of Russia, ed.
Ronald Grigor Suny (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 71.
25 Wortman, Visual Texts, 375.
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read aloud to twenty or more of their neighbours.26 A highly innovative publi-

cation, produced for the tercentenary, was a pen-portrait of Nicholas entitled
The Reign of the Sovereign Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich.27 This was autho-
rised by the emperor himself and written by Andrei Elchaninov, a member
of the imperial suite. Published by Selskii vestnik, the large publishing house
whose products were directed at the rural population, the biography achieved
the widest possible circulation by also being serialised in many Russian news-
papers.28 There were, in addition, a French translation and two editions of an
English version: a hardback, and a paperback costing two shillings, though
information about their sales and reception is scant.29 (The English transla-
tions were made by Archibald Percival Wavell, a British officer who had been
seconded to the Russian army for a year in 1911 to learn the language.)
The text of this biography of a living monarch, a genre unprecedented in
Russia, portrayed Nicholas as an ordinary man, yet still better than anyone
else at whatever he undertook, be it hunting, swimming, photography, play-
ing billiards, being a father, or administering an empire. The book was lavishly
sprinkled with photographs and illustrations. Several of these reproduced
the formally posed, official photographs of Nicholas and his family members,
but there were also reproductions of family snapshots, including images of
Nicholas paddling a canoe or hiking with his daughters, which situated him
visually in a rather mundane, bourgeois context.30 One has to question how
much traction the description of this ordinary family man could have for the
newly literate Russian readers and listeners of 1913, whose tastes in fiction ran
to detective serials, stories of success, and “inherently subversive heroes and
heroines.”31
Another important tool for disseminating the image of the ruler in both
Britain and Russia was the picture postcard: small, portable, and cheap, post-
cards were recognised as effective tools for education and moral improvement
26 Jeffrey Brooks, When Russia Learned to Read: Literacy and Popular Literature 1861–1917
(Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2003), 314–15, 351.
27 Andrei G. El’chaninov, Tsarstvovanie Gosudaria Imperatora Nikolaia Aleksandrovicha
(Moscow: Knigoizdatel’stvo Sel’skago Vestnika, 1913), https://archive.org/details/tsarst-
vovaniegos00elch, accessed August 2, 2019.
28 Richard Wortman, “Publicizing the Imperial Image in 1913,” in Self and Story in Russian
History, ed. Laura Engelstein and Stephanie Sandler (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell
University Press, 2000), 94.
29 Major-General A. Elchaninov, Tsar Nicholas II, transl. from the Russian by A. P. W. (London:
Hugh Rees Ltd., 1913); Major-General E. [sic] Elchaninov, The Tsar and His People, transl.
from the Russian by A. P. W. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1914).
30 El’chaninov, Tsarstvovanie Gosudaria Imperatora, 21, 39.
31 Brooks, When Russia Learned to Read, xxviii.
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366 Wendy Slater
(though these very qualities also gave them massive potential to promote sub-
version). The picture postcard was late in coming to Russia and restrictions
on postcards that bore pictures of the imperial family remained in place until
1910, though such postcards were widely available in western Europe.32 After
that date, picture postcards were an important element in the imperial family’s
self-promotion. To mark the Romanov tercentenary, a series of postcards of the
imperial family was produced, the images selected from a set of photographs
taken by Boissonnas & Eggler. These show a family posed in chocolate-box
prettiness and they have come to constitute the iconic image of the Romanov
family (fig 13.7). Eschewing any suggestion of imperial grandeur, the subjects’
dress emphasises domesticity and simplicity. Nicholas wears ordinary military
uniform, and the glittering jewellery of the Romanovs is pared down to a mini-
mum. This is a calibrated balance between modesty and fabulous wealth. The
viewer is meant to see a perfect family and a perfect dynasty: father and son
devoted to Russia’s army and navy, the daughters destined for marriage, the
mother regal yet modest. However, the impact of this image may have been
diminished by other postcards in circulation, such as that showing Nicholas in
a rowing boat with his wife and two elder daughters, in which he appears as an
ordinary man rather than an emperor.33
In addition to postcards, numerous other consumer goods bearing Nicholas’s
image (or that of the family) were produced for the 1913 anniversary. Merchants
and manufacturers entered a symbiotic relationship with the imperial court, in
which both sides sought advantage.34 But, as with the Elchaninov biography, it
was a fatal paradox that the very objects used to publicise the emperor served
to undermine his mystique. For example, in January 1913 a series of seventeen
postage stamps commemorating the Romanov dynasty was issued—the first
Russian stamps to bear an image of the ruler.35 Letters now carried the face
of Nicholas II to every village within Russia. But stamps must be franked, and
there were reports that some postmasters had refused to deface the emperor’s
features. Calendars decorated with pictures of the imperial family were, like
32 Tobie Mathew, Greetings from the Barricades: Revolutionary Postcards in Imperial Russia
(London: Four Corners Books, 2019), 38–47.
33 Alison Rowley, “Monarchy and the Mundane: Picture Postcards and Images of the
Romanovs, 1890–1917,” Revolutionary Russia 22, no. 2 (2009), 125–52, 139, https://doi.
org/10.1080/09546540903274618.
34 Marjorie L. Hilton, Selling to the Masses: Retailing in Russia, 1880–1930 (Pittsburgh, PA:
University of Pittsburgh Press 2012), 73–109.
35 “Russian Stamps: Issues of 1913–1917,” Stamp-Collecting-World. Featuring: European and
North American Philately, https://www.stamp-collecting-world.com/russianstamps_1913.
html, accessed August 2, 2019.
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Figure 13.7 Boissonnas & Eggler, Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia and his family, 1913, gelatin
silver print, 15.5 × 18.3 cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.
stamps, functional and inherently obsolescent objects that might be discarded

after a year. And even objects intended as souvenirs had the potential to dam-
age, rather than enhance, the dignity of the sovereign. All kinds of trinkets
were produced carrying Nicholas’s portrait, and the imperial court struggled
to reconcile the concept of consumer goods and royalty; for example, grant-
ing one request to produce scarves bearing Nicholas’s image but only with the
proviso that these were “not of a size suitable for use as handkerchiefs.”36 Even
souvenirs of appropriate gravitas might still be of poor quality. This was the
case for some versions of the commemorative medal produced for the tercen-
tenary. The medal bore the images of Nicholas II and of the first Romanov
tsar, Mikhail, and around two million examples of the cheaper models were
36 Wortman, Scenarios of Power, 483–84.
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368 Wendy Slater
distributed free to the lower army ranks and the peasantry. But many suffered
from flaws in the casting because of mass production techniques.37
The propaganda of Nicholas’s image was meant to popularise an insur-
gent monarchy, but the commercialised nature of this publicity inadvertently
undermined the image of the ruler whose narrative of legitimacy highlighted
his incorruptibility, personal piety, and moral superiority to the common peo-
ple. In Britain, by contrast, where the monarchy was also under pressure from
modernity, the institution had shored up its popularity by underlining its rel-
evance to modern Britain. In that sense, the British monarchy’s exploitation of
commercial culture and the mass media was no threat to its image.
The tours undertaken in 1913 by both the Russian and the British royal cou-
ples illustrate this contrast. In May, Nicholas and Alexandra retraced the route
taken in 1613 by Mikhail Romanov from Kostroma to his coronation in Moscow.
The imperial couple and their family performed a kind of pilgrimage through
the towns and cities of seventeenth-century Muscovy, as meetings replete with
traditional ceremony and religious symbolism were staged with soldiers and
well-scrubbed peasants—the class representatives of a pre-modern society. In
Britain, in 1913, King George V and Queen Mary also staged a series of tours,
visiting the industrial areas of the North and Midlands, where the couple were
shown around factories and were invited into working class homes to take tea,
highlighting their roles as modern, constitutional monarchs.38 Both tours were
heavily publicised in the print media and in newsreels, and they were com-
memorated with postcards and cheap, mass-produced souvenir objects, befit-
ting the modernising, ‘democratic’ British monarchy, but incongruous in the
case of the Romanovs.
The 1913 Romanov tercentenary was noted in Britain, though there was no
participation in the ceremonies by any British representatives. It was, after all,
a Russian national event rather than one with international significance, such
as a coronation or dynastic marriage. The Boissonnas & Eggler photographs
were published in The Illustrated London News, but most British newspapers
tended to ignore the celebrations.39 Nevertheless, the tercentenary did provide
opportunities for state-level cultural exchange between the two countries. The
37 “Commemorative Medal for the Tercentenary of the Romanov Dynasty,” Antique Photos,
https://antique-photos.com/en/awardsdatabase/russian-empire/539-sommemorative-
medal-for-the-tercentenary-of-the-romanov-dynasty.html, accessed August 2, 2019.
38 Frank Mort, “Safe for Democracy: Constitutional Politics, Popular Spectacle, and the
British Monarchy 1910–1914,” Journal of British Studies 58, no. 1 (January 2019): 109–41,
https://doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2018.176.
39 The Illustrated London News (July 19, 1913): 23–24. Claire McKee, “British Perceptions
of Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Fedorovna 1894–1918” (Ph.D dissertation,
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Royal Collection holds an example of one of the more expensive versions of

the commemorative medal in gilt bronze, which is assumed to have been a gift
from Nicholas II to George V.40
Thus, whilst the mechanisms of publicity and propaganda in the image-
making of the two monarchies were very similar, and whilst the Romanov fam-
ily shared a visual culture and a social milieu with their British cousins, there
was a fundamental difference between them, rooted in their contrasting politi-
cal cultures: a medieval concept of monarchy in Russia, and modern constitu-
tionalism in Britain. In Britain, the monarchy had been rendered popular by
modern publicity techniques, and by the time of George and Mary’s 1913 tour
had acquired a broad, if not universal appeal that compensated for its reduced
political status and also gave it a stable footing in a rapidly democratising soci-
ety. In Russia, attempts to publicise the image of Nicholas II and Alexandra
had in fact contributed to undermining their status. Whereas association with
the everyday popularised the British monarch whose power had been reduced
to that of a largely ceremonial figure, it introduced a fatal contradiction into
the image of Nicholas II, an image which now “assumed traits of the European
monarchs, whose modus vivendi with parliamentary institutions Russian
monarchs had vowed to avoid.”41
These differences were to be starkly exposed by Russia’s February 1917
Revolution. George V, sensitive to his carefully constructed image of a mod-
ern constitutional monarch and a mediator in class conflict, was reluctant to
offer sanctuary to the Russian autocrat after his abdication. Fears that liberal
and latent republican sentiment in Britain, and suspicions that the Romanov
court—Alexandra in particular—were guilty of treason on Germany’s behalf,
clearly made it unwise for the king to realise the impulse to rescue his cousin.
The notes from George V’s private secretary, Lord Stamfordham, emphasise
that the king was being petitioned “from people in all classes of life” against
having Nicholas and Alexandra come to live in Britain.42 This shows that
George V was acutely aware that he had to consider his public image in tak-
ing decisions that could affect the popularity of the British monarchy, for this
popularity was the basis of its continued survival. Nicholas II, by contrast, who
had emulated the publicity techniques of his British cousin but who had few
University of London, 2014), https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1420957, accessed

June 30, 2021, 245–47.
40 Royal Collection Trust, catalogue no. RCIN 441624. See De Guitaut and Patterson, Russia:
Art, Royalty, 339.
41 Wortman, Visual Texts, 97.
42 Andrei Maylunas and Sergei Mironenko, A Lifelong Passion: Nicholas and Alexandra: Their
Own Story (London: Phoenix Giant, 1997), 559–63, 566–70.
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370 Wendy Slater
formal constraints upon his powers as autocrat, had subscribed to his own
“scenario of power” and had seen no need to bend to public opinion or to con-
cern himself with politics, with the struggle of ideas and classes. The images of
Nicholas that were created to publicise his reign reflected the nature of autoc-
racy as he understood it, which rendered it sufficient for him to present the
image of a perfect ruler, husband, and father to retain the intrinsic loyalty and
affection of the Russian people.
Russian revolutionary cartoons of the period—frequently printed as picture
postcards—illustrate how deluded Nicholas was. These cartoons defaced and
remade the public image of the Romanovs, with the concept of Nicholas as
paterfamilias being a particular target and the emperor instead portrayed as a
child. A hand-drawn picture postcard from 1905, for example, shows Nicholas
as a toddler enjoying a temper-tantrum as his balloon, labelled “Autocracy,”
floats away.43 During the war, as the disjuncture widened between the ide-
alised image of the sovereign and the reality of his subjects’ lives, the tropes
used in Nicholas’s “scenario of power” were subject to widespread visual ridi-
cule, and with the February 1917 Revolution and the removal of the draconian
punishments for caricaturing the emperor such images exploded into the pub-
lic sphere. Numerous caricatures depicted Nicholas, Alexandra, and Rasputin
in a sordid ménage-à-trois, the antithesis of the image of the perfect family
that was central to Nicholas’s scenario. Another cartoon, by Viktor Denisov, has
as its caption a quotation from the emperor’s statement of abdication, whilst
the picture mocks Nicholas as a little boy, too small to fill either his robes or
his role. These images suggest that the messages conveyed by Nicholas’s pub-
lic image had been absorbed and become part of popular visual culture; as
such, these messages were openly satirised and subverted when autocracy fell.
The iconoclasm inherent in the February Revolution was vicious and total, the
visual imagery of the old regime destroyed perhaps because there was so little
actual political opposition to the Revolution.44 The symbols of tsarism and
the images of the emperor were defaced, and the Romanovs themselves were
deported into internal exile, obscurity, and a clandestine execution.
43 Mathew, Greetings from the Barricades, 332.

44 Orlando Figes and Boris Kolonitskii, Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language
and Symbols of 1917 (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1999), 48.
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Curious Afterlives
Nicholas and his family were executed by members of the local Bolshevik
party in Ekaterinburg on the night of July 17–18, 1918. It was a botched and
hasty affair, and the bodies were hidden in the woods outside the city. Within
a decade, the imperial family was of no relevance in Russia, as the Stalinist
cultural revolution took hold. In the west, however, where the political signifi-
cance of the Romanovs waned too, their entertainment value increased. In the
century since their deaths, they have been the subject of popular histories and
biographies, from which have sprouted exhibitions, documentary films, televi-
sion series, and, more recently, websites, creating a historical discourse that
flourishes outside the strict boundaries of the academic discipline.45 From
the start, sensational stories of ritual murder and of miraculous survival—the
most famous, of course, that of Anastasia—contributed to this discourse. It
has come to encompass other genres even more distant from history-writing
(whether popular or academic), including historical fiction, the collecting and
exchange of historical artefacts, and most recently online communities via
social media, gaming, and virtual history. Together, these genres constitute a
kind of historically focused entertainment that has been described as “para-
history” or “history at play.”46
The reasons why the Romanovs are so suited to this playful history are obvi-
ous: the romance of Nicholas and Alexandra’s marriage; the tragedy of their
haemophiliac son and the prurient fascination exerted by Rasputin; the fabu-
lous wealth of the Romanovs in life; the drama and tragedy of their deaths; the
persistent survivor myths; and their extensive and ramified family ties with the
royal houses of Europe. The expansive visual material about the Romanovs—
the many thousands of photographs—underpins what is now a massive para-
historical industry founded upon the romanticisation and fictionalisation of
their lives. That the photographs of Nicholas and his family have shaped these
narratives is, in large part, because “the fascination that photographs exercise
is […] an invitation to sentimentality.”47 In the Romanovs’ case, it is not simply
because all photographs make the viewer more acutely aware of the passage of
time, but also because our reactions to these photographs in particular cannot
but be affected by our knowledge of their subjects’ fate.
45 See, for example, works by writers such as Robert K. Massie, Edvard Radzinsky, and Helen
Rappaport.
46 Jeffrey Brooks and Boris Dralyuk, “Parahistory: History at Play in Russia and Beyond,”
Slavic Review 75, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 77–98.
47 Susan Sontag, On Photography (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977), 71.
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372 Wendy Slater
In Soviet Russia, the state’s control over culture militated against the devel-
opment of a similar “para-historical” industry around the Romanovs. Yet an
underlying fascination with Nicholas and his family remained. The early Soviet
state did commemorate the revolutionary act of imprisoning and executing the
autocrat, particularly in Sverdlovsk (formerly Ekaterinburg), where the Ipatiev
House was turned into a Museum of the Revolution. Here, visitors could peruse
artefacts dating from the Romanovs’ period of imprisonment, view one of the
weapons used in the execution, and be awed by the huge canvas, Handing over
the Romanovs to the Ural Soviet (V. N. Pchelin, 1927), which was reproduced as
a souvenir postcard.48 Popular interest in the Romanovs, however, really bur-
geoned during the 1970s, when Russian nationalism and a kind of nostalgia
for the pre-Revolutionary past began to gain cultural respectability.49 In 1972,
Twenty-three Steps Down—a historical novella about the Romanovs’ deaths—
was serialised in the St Petersburg literary journal Star [Zvezda].50 And, in
1975, noted director Elem Klimov made the film Agony [Agoniia], portraying
Nicholas II in a rather sympathetic light as a foil to the debauched Rasputin
placed at the centre of the movie.51 There were even quiet pilgrimages to the
Ipatiev House, by then turned into offices, with flowers left for the murdered
Romanovs. As a result, the building was ordered to be torn down in 1977 prior
to the sixtieth anniversary of their deaths. Interest in some quarters was so
intense that in the late 1970s a small group of enthusiasts managed to locate
the burial site of Nicholas and his family, though they had to keep their discov-
ery secret.52
The formal exhumation of the Romanovs’ remains, however, had to wait
until July 1991 and the collapse of the Soviet government. Images of Nicholas
II then assumed a different dimension, as the last emperor and his family
became the object of a criminal, forensic investigation and pictures of their
skulls provided a new and rather shocking corrective to the idyllic photographs
of the Romanovs. The skeletal remains were exhaustively examined to estab-
lish positive identification, a process that involved important international col-
laboration with a British laboratory at the forefront of DNA testing in the early
48 Intourist. A Pocket Guide to the Soviet Union (Moscow and Leningrad: Vneshtorgizdat,
1932), 416.
49 Yitzhak M. Brudny, Reinventing Russia: Russian Nationalism and the Soviet State, 1953–1991
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998); Kathleen Parthé, Russian Village Prose:
The Radiant Past (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992).
50 It was published in book form in 1978: Mark K. Kasvinov, Dvadtsat’ tri stupeni vniz
(Moscow: Mysl’, 1978).
51 Agoniia, directed by Elem Klimov, Mosfilm, 1981, US title Rasputin. The film was released
in the Soviet Union in 1985.
52 Wendy Slater, The Many Deaths of Tsar Nicholas II (London: Routledge, 2007), 16–27.
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Figure 13.8 Nikolai Bogdanov-Belskii, Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia, 1908, oil on canvas,
- 978-3-657-79376-1
374 Wendy Slater
1990s.53 In 1998 the Romanov remains received a state burial in St Petersburg

on the eightieth anniversary of the deaths, although this was not the grand
ceremony of reconciliation and spectacle that had been planned. The Russian
Orthodox Church, hesitant to endorse the identification of the remains, sent
no senior churchman to conduct the service and refused to name those being
interred, praying instead for “Victims of the Civil War known only to God.”
Nevertheless, the burial ceremony offered an occasion for cultural exchange
with Britain: Prince Michael of Kent, who is related to the Romanovs through
his mother and has a strong interest in Russia, was in attendance, as were four
officers of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (formerly Royal Scots Greys), the
regiment of which Nicholas was colonel-in-chief (fig. 13.8).54
Nicholas as Icon
Images of Nicholas evolved in a different direction in post-Soviet Russia with

the sanctification of the former emperor in 2000, when the Russian Orthodox
Church named more than a thousand “new martyrs and confessors.” Whether
Nicholas and his family should have been numbered amongst these new saints
was a highly contentious question. Some churchmen opposed their inclusion
on political grounds: that it could indicate the Church’s endorsement of autoc-
racy.55 There was also a theological objection: Nicholas and his family had
not died as martyrs for their faith; in fact, their canonisation was described
as “sainthood-lite.”56 In the end, the Romanovs were elevated to the status of
“holy passion-bearers” in the tradition of the earliest royal Russian saints, the
medieval princes Boris and Gleb.
The mass canonisation of “new martyrs and confessors”—Orthodox believ-
ers who had died at the hands of the Soviet government—marked the Church’s
attempt to re-cast its complex relationship with the Soviet state and position
itself as a unifying institution for post-Soviet Russia. And whilst many of the
“new martyrs” acquired very few adherents, the cult of Nicholas and his family
53 Peter Gill, Pavel L. Ivanov, et al., “Identification of the Remains of the Romanov Family by
DNA Analysis,” Nature Genetics 6 (1994): 130–35.
54 For the list of guests, see “17 July 1998: The funeral of Tsar Nicholas II,” http://www.
romanovfamily.org/funeral.html, accessed August 2, 2019.
55 Author’s interview with Fr Vsevolod Chaplin, Daniilevskii Monastery, Moscow, October 27,
1998.
56 Dmitrii Pospelovskii, “Ne pora li vspomnit’ o khristianstve?” Nezavisimaia gazeta
(November 24, 1999); D. V. Pospelovskii, “Vopros o kanonizatsii Nikolaia II i Aleksandry
Fedorovny,” Vestnik russkogo khristianskogo dvizheniia 176 (1997): 243–55.
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was enormously popular, not least because the iconography of the new royal
saints, derived from the multiplicity of visual sources provided by the Romanov
photographs, was instantly recognisable and attractive.57
One of the earliest icons to be created of Nicholas, and one that played a
major role in the drive for his canonisation, originated in the Russian émigré
community in California. Painted in 1996 by a Russian émigré iconographer,
this icon had been commissioned by a member of the community who also
paid for 44,000 copies of the icon to be printed with the aim of distributing
them in Russia (fig 13.9).58 In November 1998 one of these copies, which had
been framed, began to “stream myrrh.” An intense publicity campaign, con-
ducted around this “miracle” by fundamentalist groups within the Russian
Orthodox Church, contributed to the momentum for the canonisation of
Nicholas and his family.59 The icon is a recognisable likeness of the emperor,
but it depicts him in medieval robes and wearing the Monomakh crown of
Muscovy, recalling portraits of the first two Romanov tsars, Mikhail and Alexis
Mikhailovich. But it also recalls the famous photograph of Nicholas II dressed
as Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich (fig. 13.10) for the costume ball of February 1903
that was held in celebration of the bicentenary of St Petersburg. In a conscious
rejection of the western ideals of that city, guests at the ball were asked to wear
seventeenth-century Muscovite court dress, implicitly celebrating the ideal of
the pre-Petrine sacred bond between tsar and people that shaped Nicholas’s
understanding of his role.60 The anachronistic nature of the ball was noted
by contemporaries like Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich [Sandro], cousin
and brother-in-law to Nicholas, who described how “a new and hostile Russia
glared through the large windows of the palace” at the “magnificent pageant
57 Stella Rock, “Russia’s New Saints and the Challenges of Memory,” OpenDemocracy.
net https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/russias-new-saints-and-challenges-of-
memory/, August 9, 2011, accessed August 2, 2019; Zuzanna Bogumił and Marta
Łukaszewicz, “Between History and Religion: the New Russian Martyrdom as an Invented
Tradition,” East European Politics and Societies and Cultures 32, no. 4 (November 2018):
936–63.
58 Richard Betts, “From America to Russia: The myrrh-streaming icon of Tsar Nicholas II,”
Road to Emmaus: A Journal of Orthodox Faith and Culture 1, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 39–54.
59 ITAR-TASS, January 30, 1999, and April 2, 1999. For Russian Orthodox Church publications
about the icon see: Blagodatnyi Tsar’nad Rossiei, ed. Igumen German (Podmoshenskii)
(Moscow: “Russkii Palomnik,” 1999, 2000); N. Sedova, Blagodatnyi dar Gosudaria: Ikona
Tsaria-Muchenika ot mirotocheniia do skhozhdeniia blagodatnogo ognia (Moscow: Novaia
kniga, 2000); Aleksandr Shargunov, “Zapretnaia tema: o kanonizatsii tsartsvennykh
muchennikov,” January 24, 2000, http://pravoslavie.ru/27184.html, accessed February 3,
2019; and the video film Gosudar’ Imperator Nikolai II: vozvrashchenie (1999), author
Elena Kozenkova, director Andrei Plakhov.
60 Wortman, Scenarios of Power, 378.
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376 Wendy Slater
Figure 13.9
Pavel Tikhomirov, Icon of Tsar
Nicholas II, 1996, colour print on paper,
16 × 20 cm, author’s collection.
PHOTOGRAPH © WENDY SLATER
2021
of the seventeenth century.”61 Yet the image of Nicholas II in his seventeenth-

century costume was reproduced with all the modern publicity means avail-
able: postcards were printed for the Russian and foreign markets and, ten years
after the costume ball, the picture was included in the 1913 biography of the
emperor.62
This image of Nicholas dressed as Alexis Mikhailovich consciously sought
to place him in a spiritual realm, outside his own historical period, and, in
that sense, it echoed the function of an icon. Indeed, in 2002, after Nicholas’s
canonisation, a postcard icon of “the Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II” was produced
from this 1903 photograph. For there is a close affinity between the ancient
medium of icons and the modern medium of photography. In Orthodox the-
ology, an icon is a channel through which the viewer connects, outside time,
with the saint depicted.63 And, like photographs, the value of icons lies not in
their uniqueness, their artistic merit, or their attribution, but in their ability to
transmit the essence of the subject. Sontag describes a photograph as “a trace,
something directly stencilled off the real […] never less than the registering of
61 Maylunas and Mironenko, A Lifelong Passion, 226.

62 Elchaninov, Tsarstvovanie Gosudaria, 26; Rowley, “Monarchy and the Mundane,” 129–30.
63 Leonid Ouspensky and Vladimir Lossky, The Meaning of Icons (Crestwood, NY:
St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1983).
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an emanation (light waves reflected by objects).”64 The concept is amplified in

Roland Barthes’s reflection that: “from a real body, which was there, proceed
radiations which ultimately touch me, who am here.”65
The interplay between icon and photograph, both “emanations of the real,”
emerges today in the numerous miracle narratives about the imperial family
circulating in Russian Orthodox communities. In these narratives, prayers to
Nicholas are answered whether they are delivered before an icon or a photo-
graph. According to priest and publicist Aleksandr Shargunov, the principal
collator of the miracle stories, there is no essential difference between an icon
of Nicholas and his photograph: “The icon of the Tsar in the Church Abroad,
is, essentially, simply a photograph with a halo, and several photographs of the
tsarist martyrs are treated as icons,” he writes. “It is no coincidence that in many
Orthodox households, these are hung together with the icons.”66 Shargunov
ascribes religious significance to photographs of Nicholas II, which he suggests
have powers similar to those inherent in any icon of the tsar: “In the Tsar’s face
is the grace of God’s peace. Looking at his photograph, one becomes calm […]
If one shows the Tsar’s face to a child, it has a good influence upon his soul.”67
Although such images with miraculous properties are quite culturally specific
to Russia, icons of Nicholas have also played a role in cross-cultural exchange.
In 2001, the regiment of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards received a portrait of
Nicholas II in the form of an icon which now travels in one of the regiment’s
“Challenger 2” tanks on manoeuvres.68
In addition to the icons of Nicholas alone, there are numerous icons that
depict him together with his family. A key element of Church discourse in
contemporary Russia is the importance of traditional virtues, such as unity,
obedience, and purity, in the modern family, and the Church frequently cites
the imperial family as a model: “The family of the tsar has been called an icon
64 Sontag, On Photography, 154.

65 Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, trans. Richard Howard (New
York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977), 81.
66 Aleksandr Shargunov, “Portret tsaria,” Pravoslavie.ru, July 28, 2018. http://www.pravoslavie.
ru/114712.html, accessed February 3, 2019.
67 Chudesa tsarstvennykh muchenikov, ed. Aleksandr Shargunov, 2 vols (Moscow: Khronos-
Press, 2001), 1: 173; 178–79.
68 The icon was commissioned and donated by the Moscow Caledonian Club. See: “Tsar
Nicholas Returns to his Old Regiment,” The Daily Telegraph (August 25, 2001); “How a Tsar
became a Guards icon,” The Scotsman (July 8, 2005); Keith Allan, “The Royal Scots Greys
and Russia,” Foreign & Commonwealth Office blog, April 19, 2017 https://blogs.fco.gov.uk/
keithallan/2017/04/19/the-royal-scots-greys-and-russia/, accessed June 18, 2020; and Paul
Gilbert, “Icon of the Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II and the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards,” https://
tsarnicholas.org/2021/05/04/, accessed May 10, 2021.
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378 Wendy Slater
Figure 13.10
Sergei Levitskii, Nicholas II dressed as
Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, Romanov
anniversary ball, St Petersburg, 1903,
photograph.
IMAGE WIKIMEDIA. CREATIVE
COMMONS PUBLIC DOMAIN
MARK 1.0
of the Orthodox family,” writes Shargunov.69 The icons of the imperial family
recall the formal, posed photographs of the Romanovs that show the family
members arranged in a close group—the best known being the tercentenary
series of pictures. Like the 1913 photographs, these group icons are intended to
function as a kind of propagandistic tableau, elevating the Romanovs as the
model of a perfect family.
69 Shargunov, “Zapretnaia tema.” See also Kathy Rousselet, “Constructing Moralities

around the Tsarist Family,” in Multiple Moralities and Religions in Post-Soviet Russia, ed.
Jarrett Zigon (New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2011), 146–67; Alexander Agadjanian,
“Tradition, morality and community: elaborating Orthodox identity in Putin’s Russia,”
Religion, State and Society 45, no. 1 (2017), 39–60, https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2016.
1272893.
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Nicholas Online
The idealised imperial family is also a key trope in the most recent manip-
ulation of Romanov imagery. With technology that is as modern as the icon
is antique, a “multi-platform digital photo project” was launched in 2018 by
a team at Russia’s state-funded, foreign language broadcaster, RT. This was
#Romanovs100, which digitised more than 4,000 photographs from the
Russian State Archive and mounted them on four social media sites (YouTube,
Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter) for “comprehensive cross-platform story-
telling.” The live project ran for one hundred days from April 8, 2018 to July 17,
the centenary of “the family’s execution by the Bolsheviks.”70 Describing itself
as a “large-scale historical photo-puzzle,” #Romanovs100 claimed it would
“piece out the big picture of a ‘lost Russia’” and “review the last decades of the
Empire as seen through the lenses of the Romanov family’s cameras.”71 With
photographs enhanced by 3-D technology, colourisation, or animation, and
accompanied by specially composed music, the project also comprised a num-
ber of social media accounts, from which principal figures in the Romanov
drama “voiced” the story in words drawn from their diaries or letters. (These
even included an Instagram site for the royal spaniel.)
There are, of course, numerous fan sites for Nicholas and his family (par-
ticularly the four daughters) and numerous online communities of admirers
who enjoy feeling a connection with the Romanovs, a connection facilitated by
the photographic images. The scale of the #Romanovs100 project places it on
a different level, however, and its connections with broadcaster RT and access
to the state archives suggest at least tacit approval by, and possibly funding
from, the Russian state. Significantly, whilst the project’s website is available
in both English and Russian, the four social media platforms are English lan-
guage only, and thus presumably directed at an international audience. In the
digital age, where such cross-cultural exchanges have become more nebulous,
#Romanovs100 can still be seen as an example of “soft power” that presents a
particular vision of Nicholas and, by extension, of Russia. Shared experiences
on the #Romanovs100 platforms take the form of “para-history,” an alternate
reality repackaged as safe entertainment without the contentious aspects of
historical analysis. The #Romanovs100 project constructs an image of Nicholas
as an ideal family man, caring, modest, and moral, and as a self-sacrificing
70 “4,000 photos, 4 social networks, 1 family: #Romanovs100 kicks off with first stories,”
RT, https://www.rt.com/news/423510-romanovs100-launches-for-100-days/, accessed
February 9, 2019.
71 “#Romanovs100.” https://romanovs100.com, accessed May 10, 2021.
- 978-3-657-79376-1
380 Wendy Slater
ruler, instrumental in Russia’s flourishing development prior to the outbreak

of war, a disaster for which he bears no responsibility. Ironically enough, this is
precisely the image that Nicholas tried to project of himself.
The forty or so mini documentaries on the #Romanovs100 YouTube plat-
form flesh out this vision. One photo-montage recounts Nicholas’s daily
routine—work, time with the family, exercise, and early to bed; another looks
at the Romanovs’ dining habits, salivating over the state dinners whilst empha-
sising the family’s love of simple fare.72 In another clip, the emperor inspects
a factory during World War I to the adulation of crowds of loyal workers.73
Even Rasputin and his influence are sanitised: “the mysterious adviser of the
Romanovs” is said merely to have “persuaded Alexandra to make some contro-
versial decisions” whilst Nicholas was “busy with World War I.”74
Nicholas’s world in #Romanovs100 is harmonious, free from conflict, and
beautiful. The immersive experience of browsing the various platforms is like
being trapped inside a gigantic late-imperial theme park, without context
beyond this world forever lost. There is an elegiac feeling to this world, but
there is no exploration of why it ended. No responsibility is attributed for the
collapse of the dynasty, and no account provided of the Romanovs’ deaths—
thus no blame laid upon the Bolsheviks. The end of the dynasty (“the Epilogue”)
is portrayed on the website simply through the fading out of each member of
the family from the famous 1913 photograph to the sound of a tolling bell.75
Today, thanks to digital media, an international audience can consume pho-
tographs of Nicholas II and his family indiscriminately, promiscuously mixing
the public images with the private ones. Yet this blurring of boundaries began
with the Romanovs themselves, as they deployed informal images as propa-
ganda for the dynasty and presented their British relatives with formal public-
ity portraits as private gifts. And, although the Romanovs shared many aspects
of visual culture and codes of behaviour with the British royal family and emu-
lated the techniques of mass publicity developed by the British monarchy, the
results were very different. Indeed, Nicholas’s efforts at image-making could be
said to have contributed to the demise of the dynasty. During the century since
72 “Tsar’s routine: How did Nicholas II spend his day-to-day life?” #Romanovs100, July 12,
2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JPnBG59Ugg, accessed February 9, 2019;
“The Romanovs’ royal dinners,” #Romanovs100, May 17, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=k4MhgXWYluk, accessed February 9, 2019.
73 “Nicholas II inspecting a rail mill factory near Bryansk,” #Romanovs100, April 26, 2018.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z-P0MFQ_5E, accessed February 9, 2019.
74 “Rasputin: The mysterious advisor of the Romanovs,” #Romanovs100, June 4, 2018 https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXREhN4LX4s, accessed February 9, 2019.
75 “The Epilogue,” #Romanovs100, https://romanovs100.com/20/, accessed February 9, 2019.
- 978-3-657-79376-1
the deaths of Nicholas and his family, their images have been manipulated and
appropriated in different ways, in both Russia and the west, as the boundary
between public and private images of the last Russian emperor and his family
has continued to dissolve, photographs have been transformed into miracle-
working icons, and the problematic complexities of history have become a
form of sanitised recreation.
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Index
Aachen 291, 299, 303, 305 Alice (Princess) [of Hesse] 156, 320–23, 355
Aarne, Johann Victor 360 Allan, William 18, 253–269, 275–282
Abbott, Lemuel Francis 240, 243 alliance (political, military) 11–12, 25, 57, 76,
Abdulhamid II (Sultan) [of Turkey] 216 100, 109, 117, 126, 135, 166–67, 193, 206,
Academy of Sciences (St Petersburg) 211, 289, 291, 319, 356
105–06, 108, 111, 236, 256 Allingham, William 164
Adlerberg (Count) 330, 335, 342 ambassador 10, 13, 16, 29–38, 43–44, 46–47,
admiral 55, 64, 253 55–56, 61–67, 75, 80–81, 84–85, 97, 100,
agate 17, 194–97, 208–11, 214–15 102, 105, 108–09, 114, 118, 120, 123, 126,
agreement (see treaty) 136, 140, 147, 170, 174–76, 206–07, 211,
Aivazovsky, Ivan 142 228, 239, 298, 330–31, 333, 341
Akhverdov, Nikolai 261 Amsterdam 45
Akimov, Ivan 259 Anastasia (Romanov) 358–59, 371
Albert (Prince) [of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha] Anderson, Matthew S. 2
16, 139–40, 144, 146–49, 156, 336 Andreeva, Galina 5, 292–93
album 49, 157, 181, 362–63 Anglican Church 331, 336, 338, 340
Alexander I (Emperor) 11, 18, 25, 138–40, Anglophilia, anglomania 10, 17, 55–70, 75,
167, 170, 246, 253, 288–313 223–34, 248, 253, 294
Alexander II (Emperor) 12, 16, 18, 26, Anglo-Russian Trade Treaty (1734) 10
135–36, 151, 153–54, 165–66, 176–77, 282, Anglo-Russian War (1807–12) 11, 25
319, 321, 323–24, 347 animals 17, 29, 100, 124–25, 161, 174–75, 215
Alexander III (Tsesarevich, Emperor) 16, Anna Ioannovna (Empress) 25, 107–08
26, 135, 151, 153, 157, 161, 169–79, 196, 216, Anne (Queen) 25
332, 339, 355 antique, antiquity 66, 74, 80, 125, 241, 259,
Alexander Mikhailovich (Grand Duke) 261, 272–76, 278, 281, 302
[Sandro] 375 Antropov, Aleksei 45–46
Alexander the Great 81, 259 Antwerp 1, 343
Alexander, David 229, 231, 239 Arbuthnot, William (Sir) 262
Alexandra (Queen) [Alexandra of Denmark] Archer, Mildred 234
151, 169 architect, architecture 10, 15, 44, 81, 137–38,
Alexandra Feodorovna (Empress) [Princess 147, 231
Alix of Hesse] 16, 156, 203, 319, 351–52, archive 18, 35, 137, 144, 200, 260, 267, 323,
360 332, 354, 361–62, 379
Alexandra Feodorovna (Empress) [Charlotte Argyll, Duke of [Lord Lorne] 320
of Prussia] 139, 141–42, 147, 150, 156, 211, Armoury (of the Moscow Kremlin) 36, 43,
266, 331 112
Alexandra Iosifovna (Grand Duchess) Arnold, Matthew 183
153–54 Ascot Races 140–41
Alexandra Pavlovna (Grand Duchess) Asia 10, 47, 125, 163, 185
109–10 astronomy 103–11
Alexei I [Aleksei, Alexis Mikhailovich] (Tsar) Atkinson, John Augustus 123, 246
8, 24, 37–38, 44, 375–76, 378 Augusta (Empress) [of Germany] 347
Alexei Nikolaevich (Tsarevich) 177, 361 Augustus the Strong 195
Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh 153–54, 165–66, Augustus, William, Duke of Cumberland 56
319–47 Australia 116, 182, 336
- 978-3-657-79376-1
388 Index
Austria 25, 56, 76, 112, 135, 291, 298, 303–04 Boissonnas & Eggler 358–59, 366–68
Austro-Hungarian Empire 207 Boit, Charles 48
autobiography 156, 270–75, 281 Bol, Ferdinand 35
autocracy, autocrat 17, 135, 141, 238, 298, 354, Bolsheviks 12–13, 26, 135, 321, 354, 379–80
364, 369–70, 372, 374 Borovikovskii, Vladimir [Volodymyr
Borovikovsky] 236
Baily, Edward Hodges 141 borzoi (hound) 16, 161–62, 170, 174, 178–182
Balkans 165, 172 botany 111–22
ball 67, 176, 264, 266, 336, 341–42, 375–76, 378 Boulton, Matthew 15, 68–70
Ballets Russes 12 Bourdieu, Pierre 355
Balmoral Castle (Scotland) 157, 200, Boutiron, Adolphe Augustin 216
203–08, 217, 355 Boydell, John 230
Baltic Germany 195, 259 British Empire, the 100, 103–04, 114, 116, 135
Baltic Sea, Baltic region 97, 321 British Museum, The 18, 47, 102, 105, 243,
Banks, Joseph (Sir) 112–120 270, 273, 275–76, 281
banquet 145, 168, 341 Briullov, Aleksandr 277
Baroque 32, 44 Briullov, Karl 139
Barthes, Roland 377 Brompton, Richard 79, 260, 293
Bartolozzi, Francesco 57, 60, 231–32 bronze 16, 44, 141, 150, 161–62, 209, 211–12,
battle 56, 140, 147, 151, 246, 270, 289, 291–92, 236, 241, 263
345, 364 Brooks’s Сlub (London) 83
Baudrillaud, Jean 5 Brucea antidysenterica 117, 122
Baxter, Alexander 70 Buckingham Palace 65, 145–46, 177, 328,
bear (as symbol for Russia) 29, 44, 47 344–45
Beatrice (Princess) 319 Burke, Thomas 231–32
Beckett, Isaac 30 Butler, Elizabeth Southerden 151, 345
Beechey, William 101 Byzantine 298–99
Beketov, Platon Petrovich 248
Belgium, Belgian 146, 174, 207 Cambridge Courtauld Russian Art Centre, The
ben Hadu, Kaid Mohammed (Ambassador) 3
34–35, 47 cameo 241
Bentley, Thomas 64, 67, 70, 75 Cameron, Charles 10, 14, 214, 231
Bergamasco, Charles 320 Cape of Good Hope 116
Berghem, Nicholaes 266 Capper, Peter 69
Berlin 74, 147, 239, 266, 324–26, 342, 347 Caribbean (region) 103
Bewick, William 276, 279 Carl Theodor, Elector Palatine 239
Biddulph, Thomas (Sir) 338, 346 Carlisle, Earl of 37
Bigge, Arthur (Sir) 204–05, 208 Carrington, William (The Honourable) 203
biography (life writing) 33, 228, 232, 240, Cartier (jeweller) 210
257, 365–66, 376 cartoon (satirical print) 370
Birbaum, Frants [Franz] 172, 198, 216 Carysfort, Lord [John Joshua Proby] 15,
Bird, Alan 239 78–84, 87, 90
Birmingham 70, 179, 252 Caspian Sea 1
Black Sea 55, 97, 281, 325, 335 casts (plaster) 75, 259, 271–74, 281–82
Blackstone, William 63, 76 Cathcart, Charles Schaw (Lord)
Blakesley, Rosalind 5 (Ambassador) 13, 15, 55–58, 60–70
Blooteling, Abraham 33, 46 Cathcart, Jane (Lady) 13, 15, 56–57, 59–60,
Bogdanov-Belskii, Nikolai 373 65–70
- 978-3-657-79376-1
Index 389
Catherine I (Empress) 25 Coleridge, Arthur 181

Catherine II [“Catherine the Great”] collecting, collection (of art) 3, 66, 74, 78,
(Empress) 2, 10, 13–17, 25, 36, 41, 44, 214, 253, 267, 280–82, 292, 371
54–55, 57, 60–70, 73–91, 97, 99–117, Collot, Marie-Anne 57, 60
122–25, 141, 144, 176, 196, 211, 214, commemoration 18, 49, 367–69
223–27, 231, 235–48, 253, 260–61, commerce 69, 117, 197, 254
277, 281, 292–97, 309–10 commission (of art) (royal) 10–11, 13, 15, 18,
Caucasus [see also Circassia] 209, 215, 266, 32–35, 38–41, 44–46, 48, 65, 73–91, 114,
277, 362 120, 138–39, 142, 144–147, 151, 153–54,
Ceylon[Sri Lanka] 336 156, 158, 172, 178, 195–96, 209, 211–12,
Chancellor, Richard 8, 24 214, 216, 226, 236, 253, 264, 276–77, 281,
Charles I (King) 24 291–92, 302, 305, 320, 323–47, 374–77
Charles II (King) [of England] 24, 32, 34, Company School (of painting) 234
36–37, 175 conduct, conduct literature 295, 301, 309
Charles II (King) [of Spain] 33 Congress of Vienna 256
Charlemagne, Adolphe 321, 324, 341 Conrath, John 275–76, 279
Charlotte (Queen) [Charlotte of constitutional monarchy 135, 226, 248, 332,
Mecklenburg Strelitz] 65–66, 103, 117 355, 368–69
Cherkasov, Baron Aleksandr 55 Cook, Captain James 114, 117, 120
Chernetsov, Grigorii 290 Copenhagen 151, 168–69, 173, 335
Chernyshev, Zakhar Grigor’evich (Count) Corden, William, the Younger 147
(Ambassador) 66 coronation 124, 167, 174, 176, 204, 236, 363,
Chesme [Çeşme, Turkey], Chesme Column 368
56, 64, 77, 236 correspondence 61, 65, 84, 86, 114, 118, 135,
Chevalier, Nicholas 18, 154, 336–348 204, 319, 323, 347
chiaroscuro 266 Collini, Cosimo Alessandro 214
china (porcelain) 263, 341 Cossack 11, 267
China (country) 102, 183 Cossons, Lady 36
Chiswick 35, 253, 278 Cosway, Maria 240
Christian IX (King) [of Denmark] 169 court artist 13, 17, 30–36, 38–41, 43–46, 85,
Chulalongkorn (King) [of Thailand] 209, 138–39, 144, 146–47, 151, 153, 196, 207,
216 234–35, 239, 270, 293, 305
Churchill, Jane (Lady) 201–03 Cracraft, James 42
Churchill, Victor (Viscount, Lord) 193–205 Crighton, Alexander 262
Churchill, Winston 201, 205 Crimea, Crimean Khanate 1, 10–11, 55, 151,
Circassia (see also Caucasus) 18, 230, 255, 183, 196, 236, 267, 323, 344
263–66 Crimean War 26, 151, 154, 166, 266, 344
Civil List, the 328, 334 Crimson Drawing Room [Windsor Castle]
Civil War (Russian) 13, 374 150, 156
Clanricarde, Lord [Ulick John de Burgh] Crimson Room [Winter Palace] 91
(Ambassador) 136 Cromwell, Oliver 24
Clarence House (London) 156, 329–31 Cromwell, Richard 24
Clinton, Edward 206, 208 Cross, Anthony G. 2, 5 4, 6, 18, 21, 66, 88, 89,
Coalport Porcelain Company (Shropshire) 97, 100, 103, 106
144–45 crystal 158, 172, 263
Colbert, Jean-Baptiste 104 cult of feeling(s) 224, 228, 230, 232, 237, 240
Coleman Sparke, Cynthia 11, 17, 193 Cunningham, Edward Francis 79
- 978-3-657-79376-1
390 Index
da Cortona, Pietro 90 193, 196, 209, 211, 216, 224, 243–44,

Darmstadt 319, 321, 331, 361 280–82, 288–89, 298, 303, 311, 313, 319,
Dashkov, Dmitrii (Prince) 309 322–23, 330, 354
Dashkova, Ekaterina (Countess, Princess) Disraeli, Benjamin 174, 334
106–07, 115, 256, 282 Dole, Nathan Haskell 183
David, Jean Louis 262 Dostoevsky, Fedor 2
Davydov, Ivan 37 Dou, Gerrit 266
Dawe, George 11, 18, 139–40, 248, 288–94, double-headed eagle (imperial) 148, 150,
301, 304–13 172, 194, 196, 217, 236, 245
Dawe, Henry 248 drawing 1, 91, 120, 122, 163, 216, 228, 230,
de Chateaubriand, François-René 298 233, 237, 245, 257, 259, 261, 267, 271–72,
de Corberon, Chevalier 86 274–80, 340
de Damas, Roger (Prince) 86 dress 33, 35, 42–43, 48, 147, 201–02, 208, 227,
de Ferronays, Auguste (Count) (Ambassador) 234, 237, 244, 255, 259, 264, 296, 326,
298 343, 358, 366, 375
de Guitaut, Caroline 11, 16, 135 Dürer, Albrecht 237
de Ligne, Charles-Joseph (Prince) Dutch (see Netherlands, Netherlandish)
(Ambassador) 86 Duval, I. 150
de Loutherbourg, Philip-Jacques 230, 233 Dvina (river) 8
de Miranda, Juan Carreño 33–34 dynastic ties 12, 18, 319, 354–55, 358
de Richelieu (Duke) 86
de Saunière de l’Hermitage, René 39 Easter 153, 195
de Ségur, Louis Philippe (Comte/Count) 81, Eaton, William 245
86, 244 école anglaise [English school of painting]
de Staal, Baron (Ambassador) 206 28
death (of a monarch) 18, 19, 37, 90, 91, 114, economy, economics 74, 100, 103–04,
122, 124, 146, 151, 157, 201, 246, 260 117–20, 122–23, 173, 217, 223–24, 236,
Debenham, Arthur William 357 293
decorated letters 38 Edinburgh 3, 12, 18, 25–26, 153–54, 156, 165,
decorative art(s) 15, 17, 30, 74–75, 78, 177, 252–57, 260, 262–69, 280, 319–47,
136–37, 150, 158, 210–15 355
Demidov Lapidary Factory 149–50, 212–13 education 15, 17, 61, 70, 195, 240, 253–63,
Denisov-Uralsky manufactory 110 297, 309
Denisov, Viktor 370 Edwards, Edward 293
Denmark, Danish 45, 114, 118, 151, 153, Edward VII (King) 26, 146, 179, 203, 355,
169–70, 173, 204, 207, 335–36, 355 363
Diaghilev, Sergei 12 Edward, Earl of Oxford 36
diamond 33, 57, 85, 140, 145, 157–58, 170, 172, Egorov, Aleksei 259, 267
194–95, 197, 209, 336 Ekaterinburg 26, 177, 211, 214, 354, 361,
Diamond Jubilee 16, 157–58, 363 371–72
diary 47, 175–76, 183, 201, 203, 252, 261, 268, Elchaninov, Andrei 365–66
270, 275, 278, 329, 351, 355–56 Elgin (Lord) 269–76
digital media 19, 354, 379–80 Elizabeth [Elizaveta] (Empress) 25, 46, 57,
Dimsdale, Thomas 63–64 108, 196, 211
diplomacy 3, 5–8, 10–19, 25, 29, 32–33, Elizabeth I (Queen) 24, 32, 85, 175
36–39, 45–47, 49–50, 57, 60–62, 65–66, Elizabeth II (Queen) 12, 319, 340
70, 73–74, 76, 81–85, 97–126, 135–36, Elizaveta Feodorovna (Grand Duchess)
150, 154–57, 161, 170–75, 177–78, 186–87, [Elizabeth of Hesse] 156
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embassy 8, 13, 24–25, 29–33, 36–42, 60, 62, Finland, Finnish 141–42
64–65, 70, 175 fire 137, 292
emigration, émigré 2, 77, 172, 181, 362, 375 FitzHerbert, Alleyne (Ambassador) 81, 83
enamel, enamelling 45, 65, 69, 140, 149, 153, flax 117–122
157–58, 173, 194, 197, 209, 216, 358, 360 Florilegium [Joseph Banks’s] 120
English Club (St Petersburg) 62 flowers, floristry 65, 111, 122, 142, 161, 166,
engraving (see also printmaking) 17, 33, 204, 211, 326, 340, 344–45, 347, 372
42–49, 54, 57, 60, 66, 75, 82, 85, 107, Fonvizin, Denis 301
158, 164, 200, 224–48, 259, 262–63, 274, Foreign Office 332–24
304–06 foreign policy 37, 76, 226, 236–37, 245, 291
Enlightenment (thinking) 75–76, 103, Fothergill, John 69–70
109–11, 126, 231, 236, 238, 256, 294–95, France, French 10–12, 25–26, 37–39, 61,
301 63–64, 70, 76, 79, 97, 111, 113, 117–118,
envoy 8–9, 13, 19, 29, 34, 37, 56, 60, 62, 66, 120, 122–26, 137, 151, 183, 204, 206,
100, 109, 125, 136 211–12, 216, 223, 229, 233–34, 239,
equestrian 35, 44, 124 243–44, 252, 257, 262, 293–94, 298, 301,
Eriksen, Vigilius 54 304, 311, 355, 365
Ernst, Serge 42 Francis I [of Austria] 303–04
eroticism 83–84, 278 Fredensborg Palace (Denmark) 151
etching (see also engraving) 46, 60, 101–02, Fénelon, François 294
105–06, 235–36, 239–40, 273 Frederick IV of Denmark 45
ethnography 264 Frederick the Great (King) [Friedrich II of
Etruscan style 66–67 Prussia] 74
Evelyn, John 41, 47, 175 Frederick William III (King) [Friedrich
execution (of monarch, royal family) 24, 37, Wilhelm III of Prussia] 139, 303–04, 324
177, 361, 370–72, 379 Friedman, Rebecca 309
exhibition 3, 11, 26, 86, 136, 148–50, 179–80, “Frog” service (see “Green Frog” Service)
196, 212–14, 256, 262, 264, 268, 270, 277, Frye, Thomas 238
281, 306, 346–47 Fusely, Henry 238
exile 12, 18, 37, 177, 204, 321, 361, 370
exoticism 42, 47, 99, 103, 112, 115, 175 Galberg, Ivan 150
Galitzine, Dmitrii (Prince) 177
Fabergé, Agathon 197 Galitzine, George 178
Fabergé, Gustav 195 gardens, gardening (horticulture) 10, 15, 64,
Fabergé, Peter Carl [Carl] 12, 153, 195–97, 75–76, 79, 99, 115, 117, 263
214–15 Gardner, Daniel 240
Fabergé (workshops) 16–17, 149, 153–54, Gardner, Francis 144
157–58, 172–73, 178–79, 193–217, 358, Gardner, William Biscombe 186–87
360 Garrard’s (jeweller) 141
Faithorne, William 42 Gatchina (palace) 115, 295, 297
Fall, Thomas 180 gender 15, 18, 108–09, 288–89, 293, 298,
False Dmitrii I 24 301, 313
Farington, Joseph 271, 276 genre painting 266, 277
Feodor I (Tsar) 24 George I (King) 25
Feodor II (Tsar) 24 George II (King) 25
Feodor III (Tsar) 24, 30, 37–38 George III (King) 25, 56, 64, 66, 102–06,
Fielding, Henry 63 114, 117
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392 Index
George IV (King) 25, 140, 150, 156, 289, 291 “Green Frog” [or “Frog”] service (porcelain)
George V (King) 26, 177, 203, 353–56, 69–70, 75
368–69 Grenouillère, La (palace) 75–77
Georgi, Johann 78 Grenville, Lord 108–09, 114, 124
Georgia (country), Georgian 46, 236 greyhound 175–76, 236
Germany, German 12–13, 30, 32, 63, 67, Grünes Gewölbe 195
76, 111, 117, 137, 146–47, 153, 172, 183, Grüner, Ludwig 336
204, 206–07, 209, 214, 257, 271, 274, guéridon 141–42, 211–12
277–78, 282, 291, 296, 321, 323, 347, Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden (King) 109
356, 369 Gytha of Wessex 2
gift-giving 3, 5–7, 11–13, 15–17, 29–30, 32,
36–42, 46–48, 57, 60, 71, 74, 80, 85, Hamilton, Lady (see Cathcart, Jane)
99–126, 136, 139, 144–50, 154, 157–58, Hamilton, William (later Sir William) 60,
161, 170–81, 193–201, 207–09, 211, 215–17, 66–67
267, 280, 323, 335, 358, 369 Hanbury Williams, Charles (Sir)
Gilmore, David 288 (Ambassador) 61
gilt-bronze 68, 137, 141–43, 149–50, 212–13, Hancock, Samuel 275
369 Hardiman, Louise 5
Giordano, Luca 90 hardstone 137, 142, 154, 158, 193, 196, 200,
Gladstone, William 168–69, 174, 329, 332, 209–17
334–35 Harold, King [Harold Godwinson] 2
Glasgow 70, 252, 256 Harris, James (Ambassador) 75–76, 84
Glinert, Ed 56 Haslan Gheray 264–66, 269
Glinka, Grigorii 254, 256 Hastings, Mary (Lady) 29
Glinka, Mikhail 341 Hau, Eduard 137
Gloucester, William, Duke of 297 Haydon, Benjamin Robert 18, 252–53,
Godunov, Boris 24, 37, 49 257–58, 269–76, 278–82
Godunova, Irina 24 Heath, Ekaterina 10, 15, 41, 97
gold (metal) 29, 47, 141–42, 149, 157–58, 173, Hermitage (see State Hermitage Museum)
175, 194–97, 200, 208, 216, 227, 253, 281, Herschel, Caroline 105–06
341, 356, 360 Herschel, William 102, 104–06, 108–09
Golicke, Wilhelm 308 Herschel telescope 16, 99, 102, 104–111
Golovina, Varvara 110–111 Hoare, Prince 240
Gorchakov, Alexander 330, 335 Hobart, John (Second Earl of
Gothic 75 Buckinghamshire) (Ambassador) 57, 61
Grand Embassy (of Peter I) 8, 25, 30, 38, 42 Holbein, Hans (the Younger) 32, 261
Grand Tour 195, 223, 253 Holl, William (the Younger) 49
Granville, Lord (Ambassador) 174, 323, Hollyer, Frederick 164
330–31, 333, 335 Hollyer, Samuel 164
Granville, Augustus Bozzi 312 Holy Alliance 291
graphic art 267–68, 274, 280 Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh 3
“Great Eastern Crisis,” the 16, 163 horology (including timepieces as gifts) 70,
Great Exhibition (of 1851, London) 11, 26, 109, 158, 172–73
136, 148–150, 212–13 horses 16, 29, 47, 99, 122–26, 259–60, 263,
“Great Game,” the 10–11 266, 344
Grebov, Evgenii 46 Horsey, Jerome (Ambassador) 175
Greece, Greek 66, 142, 165, 169, 211, 241, 257, Houghton Hall 74
270–71, 281, 336, 341 Household (British Royal) 104, 201, 203,
Green, Valentine 239–40 206–07, 217, 320, 328, 330–31
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Index 393
Household (Russian imperial) 137, 170, 207, Karl, Prince [of Prussia] 177
320, 342 Kauffman, Angelica 75, 230–31, 261–62
Houston, Richard 59 Keibel, Wilhelm 172
Hughes, Lindsey 37, 42, 46, 48 Keith, Robert 61
Hunt & Roskell 141 Kelly, Catriona 301
“Husk” service (porcelain) 65 Kelly, W. K. 185
Kensington Palace (London) 30, 40
icon, icon painting 43, 156, 330, 374–79 Kew 99–100, 114, 117
iconography 32, 48, 173, 227, 234, 323, 375 Khrapovitskii, Aleksandr Vasil’evich 244
iconostasis 156 Killanin, Lord 33
Idar-Oberstein 209, 214 Kiprenskii, Orest 259
Imperial Academy of Arts (St Petersburg) Kitton, Frederick George 163
13, 18, 224, 227–29, 231, 245–46, 248, Kivelson, Valerie 6
261, 272, 274, 306 Kizhi (island) 1
Imperial Lapidary Works (Peterhof) 134, Klimov, Elem 372
142–44, 150, 210–12 Kneller, Godfrey (Sir) 13, 29–36, 38–48, 78,
Imperial Porcelain Manufactory 16, 136, 296–97
142–45 Knights Hospitaller 11, 125
India, Indian 11, 16, 25, 116, 120, 163, 185, Knowles, Charles (Sir) 64
206–07, 233–34 Köler, Johann 325–26
Institute of Electroplating and Bronzework Kollin, Erik 197
150 Kolyvan 152, 211, 214
Institute of Mining, St Petersburg 211 Königsberg 44
Interregnum 8, 37 korgon porphyry 152, 154
Ipatiev House 361, 372 Kornilov, Nikolai Kornilovich 142
Ireland, Irish 62, 79, 87, 164, 266 kovsh 17, 193–200, 206, 208–10, 215–17
Isle of Wight 12, 135, 356 Kravchinskii, Sergei [“Stepniak”] 12, 185
Italy, Italian 44–45, 66, 76, 216, 231, 239–40, Kremlin (Moscow) 29, 36, 43–44, 48, 112, 216
261, 281–82 Kremlin Museum 29
Ivan IV (Tsar) 1, 8–9, 24, 29, 32, 175 Kronstadt 55, 100, 136, 321
Ivan V (Tsar) 24 Krüger, Franz 147
Ivan VI (Tsar) 25, 85 Kruzenstern, Ivan Feodorovich (Admiral)
253–54, 257
jade 153, 173, 208–09 Kulibin, Ivan Petrovich 111
James I (King) 24, 37 Kunstkamera (of Peter I) 210
James II (King) 24 Kyiv 198
Jansson, Maija 38 Kyivan Rus [Kievan Rus] 2
jasper 11, 173, 215
Jenkinson, Anthony 1, 4, 8 Lagrenée, Jean François 227
Jervas, Charles 78 Laharpe, Frédéric-César [or La Harpe] 295
jewellery 16, 100, 112, 148–49, 153, 157–58, Lamb, Charles 311–12
170–73, 195–97, 344, 366 landscape (art) 35, 231–32, 267
Jones, Thomas 78 Landseer, Charles 276, 279
Joseph II (Holy Roman Emperor) 76 lapidary art, manufacture 134, 137, 142,
149–50, 151–53, 193–200, 210–14
Kalochine, Dmitry 331 lapis lazuli 142, 209
“Kammerführer” Journal [Russian Court Lawrence, Thomas (Sir) 98, 140, 256,
Circular] 80–81 288–91, 299–305, 308–12
Kapnist, Vasilii 110 Leigh, Allison 11, 18, 114, 248, 288
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394 Index
Levey, Michael 301–02 Manchester, Duchess of 179

Levi, Peter 182 map 1–2, 4, 24, 236
Levitskii, Dmitrii [Dmytro Levytsky] 62 marble (material) 57, 134, 209, 261, 328
Levitskii, Sergei 351–52, 378 marbles (Elgin) 270–76
Lexell, Anders 104 Marisina, Irina 11, 17–18, 252
Lieven, Prince (Ambassador) 211 marriage ceremony 154, 156, 320, 335–42
Lincoln Cathedral 16, 161–62, 181 Mauss, Marcel 5
lion (as symbol of Britain) 44, 47 Maria Alexandrovna (Grand Duchess of
Liria, Duke of (Ambassador) 175 Russia, Duchess of Edinburgh) 12, 18, 26,
literature 2, 12, 29, 61, 87, 183–87, 229, 231, 153–54, 156, 161, 165, 319–44
240, 257, 269, 294–95, 301, 305, 372 Maria Feodorovna (Grand Duchess, Empress)
Livadia 323, 325–36, 341–42 [Sophia Dorothea of Württemburg]
Lobanov-Rostovsky, Alexei (Prince) 206 91, 99–123, 231, 241, 246, 253–54,
Lockhart, John Gibson 264 256–57, 260, 263, 281
Loftus, Lord (Ambassador) 330, 333, 335, Maria Feodorovna (Empress) [Dagmar of
341 Denmark] 149, 151, 153, 196
London 3, 8, 10, 12–13, 17, 25, 29–30, 33, 37, Maria Nikolaevna (Princess) 138–39
39–43, 55–56, 63, 65–66, 70, 73–74, 79, Maria Theresa (Archduchess of Austria) 76
83, 108, 124, 126, 136, 141, 165, 179–80, Marlborough House 184, 203
183–84, 196, 198, 204, 207, 211–12, Marlow, William 78
224–30, 236, 238–46, 252–57, 260, 266, martyr, martyrdom 374–77
269–82, 294, 304, 330–36, 342, 344, Marvin, Charles 185
351, 368 Mary (Queen, Consort of George V) 368–69
“London” service (porcelain) 141 Mary I (Queen) 24, 39
Lorrain, Claude 261 Mary II (Queen) 24
Losenko, Anton [Antin Losenko] 227 masculinity 18, 107, 125, 288, 294–99, 309,
Louis IV (Grand Duke) [of Hesse] 321 312–13
Louis XIV (King) [of France] 104 medal 140, 227, 363, 367, 369
Louis XVI (King) [of France] 111 Melbourne, Lord 136
Louise (Princess) 322, 358 Melmouth, William 311–12
Loutherbourg, Philip-Jacques 230, 233 mezzotint 30, 46, 48, 59, 62, 78–79, 98, 123,
Louvre [Musée du Louvre, Paris] 262, 281 226–27, 238–48
Lukutin workshop (lacquerware) 49 Michael [Mikhail] Pavlovich (Grand Duke)
Lutheran (religion) 110 147, 271–72, 276, 279
Mikhail (Tsar) [Mikhail Romanov] 24, 375
Macardell, James 59 Mikulin, Grigorii I. 32
Macartney, George (Sir) (Ambassador) 55, Miles, Edward 79
61–62, 102 military, militarism 10–11, 16, 38, 43, 56,
Mackenzie, Frederick 273 79, 98–99, 103, 109, 116, 118, 122, 126,
Mackenzie, Henry 238 157, 163, 171, 185, 208–09, 216, 235–36,
“Magasin Anglais” [English Shop] 243–44, 248, 254, 257, 259, 261, 263,
(St Petersburg) 141, 211 288–313, 340, 361, 366
Magnussen, Christian Karl 320 Military Gallery, The (St Petersburg) 11, 18,
mahogany 103 140, 248, 288–313
malachite 11, 16, 134, 136–38, 148–150, 156, mines, mining 150, 210–214
173, 211–13 miniature (painting) 45, 48, 149, 153 230,
Malta 11 233, 241
Manchester 58, 179, 253 Moiseeva, Svetlana 33
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Montenegro 165 Newcastle, Duchess of 180

Moor, Karl (Carel de) 45 Newcastle upon Tyne 252
Moore, Thomas 266 Nicholas I (Tsar) 11, 16–17, 25, 91, 135–44,
Morocco 34, 35, 47, 361 147–48, 151, 166, 171, 177, 179, 211,
Mortimer & Hunt (Hunt & Roskell) 141 252–282, 288, 297, 331, 344
mosaic 150, 193, 196, 211–12 Nicholas II (Tsar) 12–13, 16–17, 19, 26, 135,
Moscow 8, 12, 29, 36–38, 55, 144, 167, 196, 154–57, 177, 180, 193–95, 197, 200, 203,
198, 232, 235–36, 242, 248, 296, 308, 205, 207–09, 217, 319, 331, 351–81
336, 340, 368 abdication (of Nicholas II) 26, 361, 369–70
Mstislavskii, Feodor 24 Nicholls and Plincke 141, 211
Mughal Empire 234 Nikitin, Ivan 45
Müller, Robert Antoine 153 Nizhny Tazhil 150
Munich 336 Nodder, Frederick 120–21
Murillo, Bartolomé Esteban 241, 261 Noe, George 117
Muscovy, Muscovite 1, 6, 8, 24, 36, 41, 175, Northcote, James 240
216, 244, 368, 375 North East Passage 8
Muscovy Company, The 8, 24 North Sea 1
Museo Nacional del Prado (Madrid) 33–34 novel, novella 63, 182–85, 229, 293, 372
Musin-Pushkin, Aleksei (Ambassador) 228 Novgorod 1
Napoleon I [of France] 11, 18, 25, 140, 281 Ochakov, Ochakov Crisis 10, 25, 97, 103
289, 292, 298, 303, 313 odalisque 179, 233–34
Napoleonic Wars 11, 18, 25, 139–40, 248, 289, Odessa [Odesa] 167, 198, 267, 269, 271
291–92, 298, 313 Old Masters 85, 90, 259, 261
Naryshkin, Lev 81 Olenin, Aleksei 272–73
Nash, Joseph 140, 150, 212, 291 Olga Nikolaevna (Grand Duchess, 1822–1892)
National Galleries of Scotland (Edinburgh) 138–39, 260, 331
255 Olga Nikolaevna (Grand Duchess, 1895–1918)
National Gallery, The (London) 83 204, 351–52, 358–59
Natural History Museum (London) 119, 121 Onega (lake, river) 1
navy (British), naval affairs 8, 55, 112, 115–18, Oram, William 260
122, 169, 321, 335 Oranienbaum 108, 321, 324
navy (Russian) 55, 64, 77, 122, 169, 366 order (military, civil) 56, 144–45, 173–74,
Near East 10 235, 244
Neff, Timofei (see von Neff, Timoleon) “Orders” service (porcelain) 144
negotiations (diplomatic) 38, 100, 110, Orlov, Aleksei (Count) 125
153–54, 176, 294, 328–40 ormolu 70
neoclassicism 10, 66, 214, 231 Ortelius, Abraham 1–2
neo-Rococo 148, 150, 212 Orthodox Church, Orthodoxy (religion) 43,
Nepeia, Osip (Ambassador) 8, 9, 24 151, 154–56, 330–31, 336, 339–40, 354,
nephrite 153, 208–09, 215–16 374–78
Netherlands, The 35, 39, 42, 44, 111, 227, 266 “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality” (policy)
netsuke 214 17
Neuberger, Joan 6 Osborne, Elizabeth (Lady Carysfort) 79
Neva (river) 8, 81, 336 Osborne (Isle of Wight) 12, 79, 135, 154, 203,
new martyrs 374 206, 326, 329, 333, 335–36, 341–42, 346
New York Stock Exchange 154 Osterman, Ivan (Vice-Chancellor) 108
New Zealand 117, 118, 120 Osuna, Duke of (Ambassador) 176
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396 Index
Ottoman Empire 10, 97, 102, 111, 234, 236, Pisemskii, Fedor (Ambassador) 29
244 Pitt, William 10, 97, 103, 245
plate (silver) 148, 331, 334, 341
Pall Mall Galleries (London) 256 Pobedinskaia, A. G. 33, 36
Panjdeh incident 185 poetry 87, 166–67, 335, 344
Parkinson, John 80 Pogodin, Mikhail 276
Parkinson, Sydney 120–21 Poland, Polish 37, 55, 97, 117, 165, 264
parsuna 43 Poliakov, Alexander 308
Parthenon (Greece) 269–72, 276 Poniatowski, Stanisław (King) 55, 61
patron, patronage 16–18, 32, 36, 44, 67–70, Ponsonby, Henry (Sir) 323, 329, 331–36,
86–87, 103–04, 108, 117, 141, 148, 193, 341–42
196, 209–10, 241, 253, 264, 269, 277, 305, Pope Gregory XVI 281
345, 347 porcelain 16, 66, 112, 114, 136, 138, 142–45,
Patterson, Stephen 12, 18, 319, 355 158
Paul I [Pavel Petrovich] (Emperor) 10–11, 16, Porter, William 67
25, 57, 63, 81, 91, 99, 115, 120, 122–26, 167, portrait, portraiture 11, 13, 16, 18, 29–49,
231, 246, 253, 298 56, 58–59, 62, 73, 75–76, 78–80,
Pavlovsk (palace) 10, 100, 113–16, 231 83–86, 98, 124, 138–40, 145–49, 151,
Pchelin, V. N. 372 153–55, 162–64, 172–73, 178, 180, 182,
peasantry 183, 355, 364–65, 367 225, 232–38, 240–41, 243–44, 246–48,
Peel, Robert (Sir) 83, 140, 146 255–56, 258–59, 264, 268, 275–77,
Pella (Greece) 81 288–97, 299–313, 319–20, 323–28,
Penny, Edward 240 335, 337, 351–62, 365–67, 375–77,
“Perfect Union” (masonic lodge) 62 380
Perkhin, Mikhail 158, 194, 197, 200 postcard 361, 365–66, 368, 370, 372, 376
Perovskii (General) 342 post-Soviet Russia 354, 374
Pershino 177–79 Potemkin, Grigorii (Prince) 15, 36, 73,
Persia, Persian 8, 47, 172, 240, 339 78–90, 244
Peter I [“Peter the Great”] (Tsar, Emperor) Potemkin, Petr (Ambassador) 13, 29–38, 43,
8, 13, 24–25, 29–30, 38–49, 85, 137, 45–46, 48–49
139, 142, 171, 173, 175, 196, 210, 236, 241, Potteries (Stoke on Trent) 70
276–77, 319 Poussin, Nicolas 245, 261
Peter II (Emperor) 25, 85, 175 Powell Frith, William 320, 346
Peter III (Emperor) 25, 61 Prideaux, William (Ambassador) 37
Peterhof (palace) 65, 137, 142–44, 150, 210, Prince of Wales 56, 146–47, 151, 176–77, 179,
277 206, 335–36, 340–41
Petrine Russia 13, 48 Princess of Wales (see also Queen Alexandra)
Philip (King) [of England and Spain] 24 320, 322, 336, 339, 342–43
Phillip, John 320 Prince Regent (see also George IV) 140, 291
Phillips, E. C. 185 prints, printmaking 46–48, 83, 85, 103, 106,
Phormium tenax (flax) 117, 120–22 124, 164, 223, 248, 376
photograph/photography 6, 19, 164, 179, 323, Prior Hall, Sydney 320
354–71, 375–81 Proby, John Joshua (see Carysfort, Lord)
Picture Gallery (Dresden) 277 propaganda 368–69, 380
Picture Gallery (Hermitage) 78, 81, 91, Prozorovskii, Petr (Prince) (Ambassador)
260–62, 281 37, 175
pietra dura 142, 193, 196, 210 Prussia 135, 139, 177, 209, 239, 266, 291,
Pindar 85, 87 303–04, 323, 336, 342, 356
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Index 397
Qing Empire 102, 109 337–39, 343, 352–53, 357, 359–60, 363,
Queen’s Gallery, The 3, 30, 40–41 367, 369, 373
Queen’s Ware 65–67, 69 Royal Scots Dragoon Guards 377
Royal Scots Greys 208, 355, 374
Radishev, Alexander 110 Royal Society, The 66, 79
Rasputin 370–72, 380 royal visit 8, 11–12, 18, 39–45, 147, 161, 203,
Rastrelli, Carlo Bartolomeo 44 254, 268, 270–72, 276–78, 303–04,
Rastrelli, Francesco Bartolomeo 44 319, 321, 323, 329, 341, 345–46, 355–56,
Redford, George 36 362–63
Redgrave, Richard (Surveyor of the Queen’s Rubens, Peter Paul 90, 261
Pictures) 338 Rudolph, Harriet 6–7, 178
regalia 1, 43, 48, 145, 170, 235, 375 Ruisdael, Jacob van 261
relief (carving) 142 Rumiantsev, Sergei Petrovich (Count)
Rembrandt (van Rijn) 35, 42, 261 232–33
Renne, Elizaveta 5, 10, 15, 16, 36, 73, 289, 292 Russian Embassy Chapel, Welbeck Street
Reni, Guido 261 331
Reval [Tallinn] 362–63 Russian Free Press Fund 12
Revolution(s) (French) 10, 97, 111, 122–23, Revolution (in France) 293
293 Revolution (Russian) 363, 369–72
Revolution(s) (Russia) 2, 12–13, 18, 26, 204, Russophilia 164
363, 369–72
Reynolds, Joshua (Sir) 15, 56, 58–59, 73, 75, Sadovnikov, Vasilii 144
77–90, 229–30, 241–42, 245, 260–61, sailing 8, 73, 136, 169, 356
277, 292, 309–12 Saint Andrew 235
Richardson, Samuel 229 Saint George 144, 184, 235, 321
Richardson, William 62, 70 Saltram House 261
Richter, Gustav 153–54, 323–28, 342, 347 Sandau, Ernest 353
Riga 118 Sant, James 346
ritual 29, 36, 100, 178, 194, 363, 371 sapphire 157–58
Rivière, Briton 181–82 Sapunov, B.V. 33, 36
Roberts, Charles (engraver) 164 Sardinia, Sardinian 151
Rochford, Lord 67 satirical print 103, 105–06
Rodzianko, Pavel 177 Satory, Joseph August 142
Rokotov, Fedor 235, 296–97, 302 Sauerweid, Alexander 259–60, 271–72,
Romanticism 229, 238, 266, 295, 354–55 274–75
Rossi, Carlo 138 Saxe-Coburg 139, 321, 336
Rovinskii, Dmitrii 42, 237 Schenk, Peter, the Elder 42
Rowe, Nicholas 63 Scotland, Scottish 10, 64, 70, 169, 231,
Rowlandson, Thomas 106, 226, 228 254–55, 264, 267, 269, 276, 331
Royal Academy of Arts, The 83, 86–87, 151, Scott, Hamish 56
226, 228 Scott, Walter (Sir) 183, 269
Royal Archives, The 18, 332 sculpture 44, 74, 147, 261, 269–74, 280–81
Royal Collection, The 3, 304, 336, 340, 347, Scythian 196, 311
351, 358, 369 Selivanov, Ivan 248
Royal Collection Trust 3, 30, 39–41, 46–47, sentimentality, sentimentalism 17, 226,
54, 123, 134, 138–40, 143, 145–55, 157–58, 229–31, 236–37, 240, 248, 280
178, 180, 202, 212–13, 230, 246–47, 291, serfs, serfdom 110, 166, 244, 298, 308, 345
297, 300, 305–06, 320, 324, 327–29, Shah of Persia 172, 339
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398 Index
Shakespeare, William 29, 63, 230 Spain, Spanish 33, 38, 76, 126, 175–76
Shargunov, Aleksandr 377–78 spaniel 177, 361, 379
Shebuev, Vasilii 259 St Helens, Lord 167–68
Shedden-Ralston, William Ralston 183–85 St James’s Palace (London) 139, 156
Shepelev House 90, 305 St Petersburg 8, 10, 12, 14–15, 17–18, 31, 36,
Shibanov, Mikhail 241, 243–44, 247 44–46, 55–70, 73–91, 97, 100, 105, 118,
Shirley, Henry 55, 61 124, 136–145, 165, 169, 195, 197–98, 200,
Shuvalov, Petr Andreevich 330 209–14, 223–27, 234–48, 253–57
Shvidkovsky, Dmitry 5 Stalinism 371
Siam, Siamese 209 Stamfordham, Lord 369
Siberia 16, 137 Stanley, Augusta (Lady) 165, 336, 340
Siberian wolfhound (see borzoi) Stanley, Dean 336
Sidorova, Maria 267–68 Starov, Ivan 81
silver 154, 157–58, 178–79, 197, 211, 216, 227, State Duma 364
263, 293, 341 State Hermitage Museum (St Petersburg)
Sir John Soane’s Museum (London) 83 29–31, 36, 43–44, 83, 145, 196, 216, 241,
sitting (for portrait) 39, 42, 291, 301, 305, 310, 331
308, 325–36, 342 State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow) 6, 107,
sketch 42, 120, 140, 147, 150, 154, 156, 164, 236
174, 186, 228, 259, 267, 275–76, 279, 305, statue 16, 44, 161, 181, 183, 272, 281
324–26, 336, 338–40, 343, 345–47 Stewart, John Douglas 32–33
Skorodumov, Gavriil 17, 223–240, 248 stipple (engraving) 17, 60, 82, 224, 227–239,
Slater, Wendy 19, 351 241, 248
slavery 103 Stoke-on-Trent 66
Smirnov, I. V. (Consul General) 32 Strange, Robert (Sir) 239
Smith, Benjamin (engraver) 101 Strelitzia reginae 117, 119
Smith, John (c. 1652–c. 1742) (engraver) 46, studio (artist’s) 83, 86, 256, 262–68, 272, 278,
48 280, 305, 325, 343, 351, 358
Smith, John Raphael (1751–1812) (engraver) Sukholdolskii, Boris 106–07
82 Svin’in, Pavel 306, 308–09
Smith, Thomas (Ambassador) 37 Sweden, Swedish 74, 109, 216
Smyth, Charles Piazzi 312 Switzerland 321
snuff box 85, 173–74, 196, 335 Sydney (Viscount) 341
Sobolev, Olga 16–17, 161
social media 19, 371, 379 Table of Ranks 171
Society for the Translation of Foreign Books, Tartary (see Crimea)
The 63 Tassie, James 75
Society of Dilettanti 66, 83 taste 10, 13, 15–17, 61, 65–67, 75, 135, 147, 150,
Solkin, David 311 193, 196, 208, 212, 214–15, 224, 234, 243,
Solntsev, Fedor 48–49, 268 245, 253, 267, 272, 277, 282, 308–11, 324,
Solovki 1 328, 365
Sontag, Susan 354, 376 Tauride (region) (see Crimea)
Sophia (Regent of Russia) 38 Tauride Palace (St Petersburg) 36
Sorrento 322, 341 technology 100, 356, 379
souvenir 175, 362, 367–68, 372 Tegelsten [Tegelstein], Carl Johann 141–42,
Soviet period 7 211–12
Soviet Union, collapse of (1991) 372 Teimuraz II (King) [of Georgia] 46
Sowerby, James 119 telescope 16, 99–111
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Index 399
Teniers [David Teniers the Younger] 261 Vatican Gallery 281

Tennyson, Alfred (Lord) 16, 161–87, 344 Vdovin, Gennadii 238
Tennyson, Audrey (Lady) 181–82 veneer 150, 211–12
Tennyson, Emily 183 Viazova, Ekaterina 5
Tennyson, Charles 181 Victor Emmanuel III (King) [of Italy] 216
Tennyson, George Clayton 167–68 Victoria Louise (Princess) [of Prussia] 356
Tennyson, Hallam 169, 181, 183, 187 Victoria (Queen) 11–12, 16, 18, 25, 135–58,
Tenterden, Lord 333 165, 179, 201, 203–08, 211–13, 278,
Tercentenary [of the Romanov dynasty, 1913] 319–47, 352, 355–56, 358, 363
271, 364–68, 378 Victoria, Princess Royal [Crown Princess of
Tetermazova, Zalina 15, 85, 223 Prussia] 319, 323–28, 347
theatre 15, 29, 63, 80, 311 Vienna 142, 256, 324
Theatrum Orbis Terrarum [Theatre of the Vinogradov, Efim 46
World] (map) 1–2 Vladimir (place) 1
Thomas, George Housman 320 Vladimir, Grand Duke 177
Thornycroft, Mary 328 Vladimir II (Monomakh) [Volodymyr
Tillander-Godenhielm, Ulla 208 Monomakh] 2, 319
“Time of Troubles,” The 24 Volkhovskii, Feliks 12
Tintoretto, Jacopo 261 Volkhovskii, Petr (Prince) 144
Tipu of Mysore (Sultan) 111 Vologda 1, 4, 9
Titian [Tiziano Vecelli] 246, 261, 310 Voltaire [François-Marie Arouet] 64
Tolstoi, Dmitrii 186 von Angeli, Heinrich 153, 324, 328
Tolstoy, Leo 1, 182–87 von Benckendorff, Paul 207
Townley, Charles 239 von Brunnow, Ernst Philipp (Graf)
translation 2, 63, 183–86, 229, 234, 245, 252, (Ambassador) 140, 330, 332
261, 294, 334, 365 von Grimm, Friedrich Melchior (Baron) 74,
treaty 10, 18, 57, 62, 79, 99, 120, 236, 321, 234, 243–44
329–35, 342 von Hamm, Alexander 214
Trubetskoi, Dmitrii 24 von Klenze, Leo 137, 147
Tsaritsyn lug 63 von Lampi the Elder, Johann Baptist 78,
Tsarskoe Selo (palace) 10, 14, 44, 64, 108, 111, 113, 241
144, 214, 236, 336, 361 von Leuchtenberg, Maximilian (Duke) 150
Tunisia 126 von Metternich, Klemens 298
Turgenev, Ivan 2, 183–85 von Neff, Timoleon [Timofei Neff] 138–39,
Turkey, Turkish 55, 64, 74, 77, 81, 206, 216, 156, 330–31
233–34, 246 Vorontsov, Semen (Count) (Ambassador)
Tuxen, Laurits Regner 148, 151, 155–56 10, 84, 105, 108, 120
Voysard, Etienne Claude 54
Ural Mountains 150, 210–12, 215, 372 Vyrubova, Anna 362
Utrecht 42
Walker, James 17, 62 78, 85, 123–24, 223–24,
Vámbéry, Armin 185 238–248
van Dyck, Anthony 32, 261 Walpole, Horace [Horatio] (4th Earl of Orford)
van Gunst, Pieter Stephens 42 39, 85, 244, 277
vase 16, 66–68, 70, 75, 136–39, 142–58, 172, Walpole Robert (Sir), Walpole collection 74,
208, 211–13, 215, 257, 261, 332 78
Vasilchikov, A. A. 42 war, warfare 11–13, 18, 25–26, 55, 56, 74, 81,
Vasily IV (Tsar) 24 87, 97, 99, 118, 120, 122–25, 139, 148, 151,
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400 Index
154, 166, 186, 236, 241, 246, 248, 288, William IV (King) 25, 140, 144, 201
297, 312–13, 321, 344–45, 356, 361, 370, Windsor, Windsor Castle 102, 134,
374, 380 136–37, 140, 142, 144–45, 148, 150,
War Gallery (see also Military Gallery) 139, 156, 165, 203, 206–07, 253, 289, 291,
290 300, 304, 311, 320, 326, 330, 339,
Ward, Edward 346 342–46
Ward, Wilfrid 181 Winter Palace (St Petersburg) 11, 18, 44,
Warwick Castle 252, 261 90, 100, 137, 139, 145, 147, 154, 176,
watercolour 14, 116, 118–22, 137, 140, 144, 248, 257, 261, 288–92, 310, 331, 336,
149–50, 212, 224–25, 259–60, 291, 324, 340–42
338–43 Winterhalter, Franz Xaver 145–47, 152–54,
Waterloo Chamber 289, 291–92, 299 323–24
Watts, George Frederic 17, 161–62, 181 Woodward, George Moutard 102
Wavell, Archibald Percival 365 Wootton, John 78, 260
website 358, 371, 378–80 Worcester (porcelain) 144
Wedgwood, Josiah 15, 65–70, 75–76, 293 workshops (Fabergé) (see Fabergé)
Wellcome Collection, The 101 workshops (Kremlin) 43, 48, 216
Wellesley, Colonel and Mrs 179 workshops (Woerffel) 209
Wemyss and March, Earl of 264, 269 workshops (other) 141, 172, 210
West, Benjamin 230–31, 256, 267 World War I (First World War) 12, 26, 380
West Indies 103 World War II (Second World War) 148
Whately, Thomas 64 world’s fairs (see also Great Exhibition) 216
White Elephant, Order of the 173 Wouwerman [Philips] 261
White Sea 8 Wright, Joseph (of Derby) 75, 78, 260
White, Robert 33, 44, 46–48 Wright, Thomas (engraver) 305
Whitworth, Charles (Sir) (Ambassador) 16, Wyck, Jan 35
98, 100, 108–09, 114, 118, 123–26
Wigström, Henrik 197 yacht (Royal) 343
Wilhelm I (Kaiser of Germany, King of yacht (Imperial) 204
Prussia) 347 Yale Center for British Art 6
Wilhelm II (Kaiser of Germany, King of Yale University 231, 256, 362
Prussia) 204, 356
William III (King) [William of Orange] 25, Zedler, Johann 126
32, 38–39, 42 Zheliabuzhskii, Ivan 37
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Courtly Gifts and Cultural Diplomacy Art, Material Culture, and British-Russian Relations

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Courtly Gifts and Cultural Diplomacy

Jeffrey P. Brooks (The Johns Hopkins University)

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

Cover design: Celine van Hoek, Leiden

1. Introduction: Visual Culture and the History of British-Russian

2. Art and Acculturation: Sir Godfrey Kneller’s Portraits of

3. Catherine II, the Cathcarts, and Russian Anglophilia . . . . . . . . . . . 55

4 Prince Grigorii Potemkin, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Anglo-Russian

5. “Give with One Hand and Take with the Other:”

6. Courtly Splendour and Cultural Identity: Nineteenth-century

7. Alfred, Lord Tennyson and an Imperial Russian Gift . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

8. Fabergé Hardstone in Imperial Gifting from Russia

9. Gavriil Skorodumov and James Walker: Printmaking and

10. “Smart Travels:” The Encounters of Grand Duke Nicholas

11. Tsar Alexander I, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and George Dawe:

12. The Wedding of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and

13. Images of Nicholas II: (Mis-)interpreting the Last Tsar . . . . . . . . . . 351

Part I: Art and Diplomacy

Part II: The Agency of Gifts

Part III: Travels and Dialogues

Part IV: Dynasties and Domesticities

Cynthia Coleman Sparke

Caroline de Guitaut, LVO

and Design,” Experiment/Eksperiment: A Journal of Russian Culture (Brill, 2019);

St Petersburg (1750s–1830s), including its evolution, artists, and international

Introduction: Visual Culture and the History of

© Brill Schöningh, 2023 | doi:10.30965/9783657793761_002 - 978-3-657-79376-1

Figures 1.1, 1.2 Russiae, Moscoviae et Tartariae descriptio, from a manuscript by

associated with museum exhibitions have explored themes of courtly rela-

notwithstanding, the material culture of diplomacy has hitherto hardly played

A Brief History of British-Russian Cultural Relations

The chequered history of British-Russian relations begins with tales of peril at

appointed Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller in 1799, was displeased by

28 Rebecca Beasley, Russomania, 40–60.

Courtly Gifts and Cultural Diplomacy

of diplomatic gift presented by the British Ambassador, Charles Whitworth, to

Rulers of Russia Rulers of England Chronology of

Ivan IV (the “Terrible”) 1533–84 Mary I 1553–581553: English explorer Richard

Boris Godunov c. 1585–1605 James I 1603–25

The Romanov Dynasty

Rulers of Russia Rulers of England Chronology of

William III 1689–1702 1697–98: Peter I’s “Grand

Rulers of Russia Rulers of England Chronology of

1851: Russia participates in

Art and Acculturation: Sir Godfrey Kneller’s Portraits

By the mid-seventeenth century the practice of ambassadorial visits between

© Brill Schöningh, 2023 | doi:10.30965/9783657793761_003 - 978-3-657-79376-1

The Ambassador’s Portrait: Count Petr Potemkin

Potemkin, an effect enhanced by a point of view pitched low enough to give a

13 Listed in an inventory at Chiswick House, c. 1740, as “Morocco Ambassdour, Sr G and old

15 On Grigorii Potemkin’s patronage of English art, see Chapter 4 of this volume.

accompanied by lavish gift-giving.21 For example, when James I’s ambassa-

ambassador was an experienced statesman, who previously had led military

The Ruler’s Portrait: Tsar Peter the Great

Petrus Alexeewitz. Magnus Dominus.

35 See Chapter 5 of this volume.

Afterlives: The Later Histories of the Portraits

Despite their English origins, both the depiction of Potemkin as Muscovite

Establishing direct links is problematic due to lack of evidence but suffice

sent to Frederick IV of Denmark in 1724, testifying to Peter’s new interest in

Antropov (1716–95), whose diplomatic portrait of Georgian King Teimuraz II

57 Cracraft, The Revolution of Peter, 91.

64 https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1920-1211-1489, accessed Novem­

64 https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1920-1211-1489, accessed Novem

a dominant exporter of flax to Western Europe.83 Banks knew this, as it was