Lot 292: Alexander Briullov (1798-1877)

Alexander Briullov (1798-1877)
Portrait of His Serene Highness Prince Alexander Arkadievich Suvorov (1804-1882)
signed 'A. Bruloff' (centre right)
watercolour, heightened with white, on card, oval
7 x 6 in. (17.6 x 15.3 cm.)
Executed circa 1830

Moscow, Museum of Private Collections, Pushkin's Contemporaries: 100 Portraits in Watercolour from a Parisian Collection, May - July 1999. Moscow, Pushkin Museum, Alexander Pavlovich Briullov. Russian intimate Portraits, 2008, no. 27.

M. Baruch & I. Sakharova, Russian Portraits in Watercolour, 1825-1855, Paris, 1994, pp. 34 and 35, illustrated.
C. A. Podstanitskii, 'Experience in the iconographic attribution of two Russian portraits from the second quarter of the 19th century', The Fifth Scientific Conference 'Expertise and Attribution of Works of fine Art', 22-26 November 1999, Moscow, working papers, 2001, pp. 139-141. Exhibition catalogue, Alexander Pavlovich Briullov. Russian intimate Portraits, Moscow, Pushkin Museum, 2008, p. 56, no. 27.

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His Serene Highness Prince Alexander Arkadievich Suvorov (1804-1882), Count of the Holy Roman Empire, painted here as a young man, was the grandson of Alexander Vasilievich Suvorov (1729-1800), the fourth and last generalissimus of the Russian Empire, a great general who never lost a battle. Alexander Arkadievich was educated abroad at the Sorbonne and the University of Gettinghen, returning to Russia in 1824 where he enrolled as a cadet in the Horse Guard Regiment. Suvorov served in the Caucasus, and participated in the Russo-Persian (1826-28) and Russo-Turkish (1828-29) wars and the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1830-31. He was Governor General of Riga from 1848 to 1861 and of St Petersburg from 1861 to 1866. This portrait may have been commissioned in honour of Suvorov's marriage to Lyubova Vasilievna Yartseva in 1830.