The portrait was painted by the Italian artist Salvatore Tonci, an honored member of the Rome and Bologna Academies. In 1797, he was invited to Russia and stayed there until the end of his life. Tonci was not only a painter, but also a poet, musician, and singer. He was the life and soul of the Moscow society and married Princess Gagarina. His large portraits with a complex composition have survived to the present day. The portrait of Gavriil Derzhavin is one of the highlights in the museum collection of the Russian art of the 18th century.

Gavriil Derzhavin was a famous poet and playwright of the era of Catherine II and Alexander I. Alexander Pushkin mentioned him as his mentor, ‘The aged Derzhavin noticed us — and blessed us / As he descended to the grave.’ At the same time, Derzhavin was a prominent statesman — a Senator, an Active Privy Councillor. He was friends with the merchants from Irkutsk, and highly appreciated their role in the development of Siberia. Derzhavin’s poems were enormously popular in Irkutsk, a lot of people used to remember them by heart and to quote.

The portrait of Derzhavin appeared in Irkutsk thanks to a representative of a famous Irkutsk merchant dynasty — Mikhail Vasilyevich Sibiryakov. In 1899, the Eastern Review newspaper commented on this event,

At the request of Derzhavin, Tonci created two identical portraits — one for Irkutsk and one for the poet himself. Later, the house of Sibiryakov became the treasury and the residence of the Governors-General of Eastern Siberia. In the mid-19th century, during the restoration of the portrait, the exiled Polish artist Stanislav Vronsky deleted the angel and changed the background of the painting. Today the Derzhavin from the Siberian portrait sits against the background of the recognizable Irkutsk scenery and the majestic panorama of the Khamar-Daban mountain range.