Vladimir Borovikovskiy became famous as a master of intimate female portraits. The artist painted the sentimental ‘Portrait of an Unknown Woman’ in 1805. The style was popular in the late 18th - early 19th century. Sentimental artists paid almost no attention to the background – usually a person was portrayed against a neutral background. On the other hand, they wanted to convey the feelings, moods and inner world of the models on their canvases.

In the painting by Vladimir Borovikovskiy, an unknown girl is depicted against the background of nature, far from the secular society. The dark green outlines of the greenery and hills in the background create a lyrical mood. The main part of the background is the sprawling tree crowns. In the lower right corner of the canvas you can see rye ears and blue cornflowers.

In his ‘Portrait of an Unknown Woman’ the artist embodied the ideals of beauty of his era. Big eyes, porcelain skin, regular features seem to reflect the spiritual beauty of the model and her tenderness. The lovely young woman looks thoughtful and immersed in her dreams. Her brown eyes are staring into the distance. The girl has a translucent milky-white Empire dress on, according to the fashion of early 19th century. She has a cashmere shawl over her thin dress. The portrait is filled with a haze softening the clear lines. The painting techniques and colour palettes accentuate the charm of youth.

Vladimir Borovikovskiy was born in 1757 to an iconographer’s family in Mirgorod, Ukraine. He watched his elder brothers and his father as they painted icons for the local churches and learned the basics of the craft from them. During her trip to the south of Russia in 1787, Empress Catherine II stayed in a house painted by Vladimir Borovikovskiy. The allegorical panels glorifying the Empress pleased Catherine II so much that she offered the artist to visit St. Petersburg and study painting there.

Vladimir Borovikovskiy moved to the capital when he was 31 years old. The painter’s age unfit him for the Academy of Arts, so the artist took private lessons from the masters of portrait painting - the Austrian Johann Lampi and Dmitry Levitskiy. When Johann Lampi left for his home country, he left his art studio in the capital to his student. In 1794, Vladimir Borovikovskiy painted a full-dress portrait of Catherine II, which she was very pleased with. A year later, the artist was granted the title of Academician of Portrait Painting for the portrait of Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich. Since 1802, Vladimir Borovikovskiy has been an advisor to the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. At the end of his life he controlled the painting of the church located at Smolensk cemetery in St. Petersburg. The artist was buried in the same church when he died at the age of 67.