Lot 6: Petr Fedorovich Sokolov (Russian, 1787-1848) Maximilian, Duke of Leuchtenberg

Maximilian, Duke of Leuchtenberg
signed in Cyrillic (lower left)
watercolour over pencil and pen and black ink, heightened with gum arabic
25 x 21cm (9 13/16 x 8 1/4in).

Petr Fedorovich Sokolov, one of the finest Russian watercolourists of the first half of the 19th century, painted numerous portraits of the Russian Royal Family and nobility. The sitter in the present portrait is Maximilian Eugene Joseph, Duke of Leuchtenberg, member of two European royal families, Bavarian and Russian. On 2nd July 1839 he married Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia in the chapel of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. On 14th July 1839, his father-in-law, Nikolai I, styled him 'Imperial Highness', a rank to which he was entitled as a descendant of the extended dynasty of Napoleon I.