Pyotr Petrovich Konovnitsyn was a nobleman from the St. Petersburg Governorate. His father was a governor of Saint Petersburg. In 1770, he was enrolled in the Artillery and Engineering Cadet Corps, and in 1774 — in the Semyonovsky Life Guards Regiment, where he began his service as an ensign in 1785.
Pyotr Konovnitsyn participated in the Russo-Swedish War in the period from 1788 to 1790. After that, he served in the army as a prime major and was appointed adjutant to Field Marshal Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin. In 1792, he was promoted to colonel.
Konovnitsyn commanded the Stary Oskol Infantry Regiment in the Polish campaigns. The military commander received the Order of St. George, 4th class, and later was granted the rank of major general and appointed chief of the Kyiv Grenadier Regiment.
In 1812, he distinguished himself in the battles of Kukovyachino (he was wounded in the arm, but remained in the ranks), as well as at Valutino. Konovnitsyn commanded the rearguard of the Russian armies and covered their retreat to Borodino. In the Battle of Borodino, when General Bagration was wounded, he temporarily took command of the 2nd Western Army. During the council at Fili, he spoke in favor of giving battle near Moscow.
The portrait of Pyotr Petrovich Konovnitsyn was transferred to the Borodino Museum-Reserve in 1964 from the State Historical Museum, where the count’s heirs had donated it. It is believed that in the 19th century the painting was located in the Konovnitsyn estate “Kyarovo” in the Gdovsky Uyezd of the St. Petersburg Governorate, where the general was buried.
It is likely that the canvas was painted by the prominent portraitist of the early 19th century Alexander Grigoryevich Varnek. This hypothesis arose due to the fact the Konovnitsyn family collection includes another portrait of the general created by Varnek.
The high pictorial quality of the portrait also helps to attribute the painting. It candidly conveys the image of an educated man who is tired of military hardships and duties as Minister of War. This portrait is known in several versions, which are kept in the collections of various museums in Russia. Some of them were attributed to Orest Adamovich Kiprensky.
In this portrait, Konovnitsyn is depicted in an adjutant general’s uniform of the 1815 model, with the Orders of St. Alexander Nevsky and St. Vladimir, 1st class, the star and badge of the Order of St. George, 2nd class, silver and bronze medals “In Memory of the Patriotic War” and foreign insignia.
