Jean-Laurent Mosnier (1743—1808) was a French portrait painter. In 1799, in Hamburg, the artist painted two family portraits of the Russian resident minister, Count Muravyov, ‘Portrait of Count Ivan Matveevich Muravyov-Apostol with his daughter Elizabeth’ and ‘Portrait of Countess Anna Semenovna Muravyova-Apostol with her son Matvey and daughter Ekaterina’ (The State Russian Museum). Matvey Ivanovich Muravyov-Apostol, who was only 6 years old at that time, could recall his childhood memories of those sessions:
‘Mosnier, the painter of Louis XVI, was among the emigrants who lived in Hamburg. I remember how I visited him with my mother and sister Ekaterina Ivanovna, and how he painted our portraits. What impressed me the most was this: during one of our visits, he treated us to artichokes, which had been recently brought to Europe from America’.‘Mosnier, the painter of Louis XVI, was among the emigrants who lived in Hamburg. I remember how I visited him with my mother and sister Ekaterina Ivanovna, and how he painted our portraits. What impressed me the most was this: during one of our visits, he treated us to artichokes, which had been recently brought to Europe from America’.
