INDEPENDENT PAINTER, 19th century, Catherine II

oil, canvas; 227 x 147 cm.

The painting on offer is an extremely successful, exquisitely rendered 19th-century copy of "Coronation Portrait of Catherine II," dated 1763-1766, by Italian painter Stefano Torelli (oil, canvas; 244 x 178 cm; the work is in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg).

Catherine II Alexeyevna the Great (1729-1796) - born Sophia Frederica Augusta, Princess of Anhalt, wife of the Grand Duke, later Russian Emperor Peter III; Empress of all Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power as a result of a palace coup that deposed her unpopular husband Peter III from the throne. During Catherine the Great's reign, the borders of the Russian Empire were greatly expanded to the west (the partition of the Republic) and to the south (the annexation of Novorossiya, Crimea, and partly the Caucasus), and the system of public administration was reformed for the first time since the reign of Peter I. Culturally, meanwhile, Russia eventually became one of the great European powers, thanks in large part to the Empress herself, who enjoyed literary activities, collected masterpieces of painting and corresponded with French thinkers. Catherine II is considered one of Russia's most outstanding rulers.

In the painting, she is depicted wearing a large imperial crown made by the famous court jeweler Jérémie Pauzié. She is dressed in a white satin gown with gold-woven images of the Russian national emblem (the double-headed eagle), and an imperial cloak is imposed on her shoulders. In her left hand she holds a royal apple, in her right hand - a scepter, next to which is visible the Order of St. Andrew the First Appointed Apostle (awarded from 1698 to 1917, the highest decoration of the Russian Empire, now a house order of the former ruling Romanov dynasty). On the cushion are three royal crowns of the Russian Empire from the beginning of Catherine II's reign, which correspond to the title of the empress - Kazan, Astrakhan, Siberia.

Stefano Torelli (1712, Bologna - 22.01.1780, St.Petersburg) - Italian painter; master of decorative painting, allegorical compositions, as well as portraitist. He studied under his father F. Torelli in Bologna and F. Solimena in Naples. From 1740, he worked in Dresden and Lübeck at the court of the Saxon Elector and Polish King August III. In 1762, he arrived in Russia at the invitation of Ivan Ivanovich Shuvalov - widely referred to as a patron of the Russian Enlightenment, including the founder of the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. From October 1, 1762 to August 1768, Torelli was a professor at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts, and from 1768. - court painter to Catherine II. From 1765 to 1770, he executed ceiling paintings and decorative paintings at the Chinese Palace and the Mountain Railway Pavilion in Oranienbaum; he also worked at the Winter and Marble Palace in St. Petersburg and Catherine's Palace in Tsarskoye Selo.