Portrait of Betskoy I.I.
Creation period
1770s
Dimensions
122,5x94 cm
Technique
Canvas, oil
Collection
8
Open in app#1
Roslin Alexander
Portrait of Betskoy I.I.
#6
#3
The portrait of Ivan Betskoy was painted by Swedish artist Alexander Roslin in the 1770s. Image of the personal secretary of Catherine II combined features of the ceremonial and cabinet portraits. Ivan Betskoy is sitting in a high back large chair in his cabinet. In Russia this type of chairs was called Volterian after the French philosopher. The author captured the hero in his home gown but not in the ceremonial dress.The portrait of Ivan Betskoy was painted by Swedish artist Alexander Roslin in the 1770s. Image of the personal secretary of Catherine II combined features of the ceremonial and cabinet portraits. Ivan Betskoy is sitting in a high back large chair in his cabinet. In Russia this type of chairs was called Volterian after the French philosopher. The author captured the hero in his home gown but not in the ceremonial dress.
#4
Roslin paid special attention to drapery: he comes well in conveying gloss of the satin gown and soft texture of the velvet culottes.
#5
The relaxed pose, contemplative look stared forward, the plan of construction in his hand - all this states that the person on the portrait is engaged in intellectual activities. In the 18th century Classicism paintings were abundant with similar details that complemented the image of the model.
#8
At that time the Russian painting was closely related to the art of the Western European masters worked in the Russian Empire. First foreign painters arrived to Russia under Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich. During the reign of his son Peter I influence of the European artists on the Russian art became very significant.
Foreign masters trained the Russian painters their techniques and shared their skills with them. At the same time the Russian culture, as well as the whole atmosphere of the Russian life in which the Western European masters found themselves, had also influenced their artistic endeavor.
#10
Alexander Roslin arrived to St. Petersburg by the invitation of Empress Catherine II. By that time he was already a famous artist. He lived in Russia from 1775 to 1777. During this short period the Swedish master had painted more than a hundred of the Russian nobility portraits commissioned from him.
The image of Catherine II is also of is his brush but the royal noblewoman was not satisfied with this work. In her letter to Baron Friedrich Grimm she wrote that the painter portrayed her as a Swedish cook, ordinary and crude. But never the less, the portrait of the personal secretary of Empress Catherine II Ivan Betskoy was commissioned from Alexander Roslin.
#12
Ivan Betskoy was an illegitimate son of Prince Ivan Trubetskoy. He was born in 1704 in St. Petersburg, but grew up and got education abroad where Betskoy became keen on the ideas of Enlightenment. On return to his motherland he began to embody progressive Western ideals into Russian reality.
He organized the Imperial Academy of Arts. The first Russian Educational House for Orphans in Moscow and the Smolny Institute of Noble Girls in St. Petersburg were built at the initiative of Ivan Betskoy.
#13
New Jerusalem Museum
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Portrait of Betskoy I.I.
Creation period
1770s
Dimensions
122,5x94 cm
Technique
Canvas, oil
Collection
8
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