One of Emperor Alexander II’s sons, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich Romanov, is shown in this portrait which was painted to celebrate his twentieth birthday.

At twenty years old, Grand Dukes were considered to have come of age, and it was customary for them to enter state service at that point. That is the reason why the Grand Duke is shown wearing a military uniform featuring aiguillettes.

It would be after this portrait was painted that Grand Duke Vladimir would play a pivotal role as a statesman during the reign of his elder brother, Alexander III. He would serve as Commander of the Imperial Guards Corps, Military Governor of Saint Petersburg, member of Senate, member of the State Council for about 25 years. A keen philanthropist, he would also be an honorary trustee of different charitable societies and would spend 33 years as President of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts. But in this portrait he has just turned twenty and all of it is yet to come.

The portrait was painted by an artist Sergey Konstantinovich Zaryanko (1818-1870) in 1867. Two years prior, Zaryanko had moved to Saint Petersburg and had started working on portraits of the Imperial Family members for the “Romanov Gallery” in the Hermitage. Zaryanko had shown remarkable artistic ability since a very early age and had received his first lessons from Vasily Mikhailovich Avrorin. He was then noticed by Alexey Venetsianov, a renowned painter and a member of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts. In 1834, thanks to Venetsianov’s protection, Zaryanko became a student of the Academy.

Zaryanko began his career by painting interiors, and he did not do portraits until later. However, it was the portrait genre that earned him the reputation, and in 1850 he was awarded the title of Professor of the Academy for the portraits of Count Fyodor Tolstoy and Captain Khvostov. By the end of his career, Zaryanko mostly lived in Saint Petersburg working with the Romanov Family. In his older years, he lost his sight in one eye, which curiously had no effect on his artistic aptitude.

The portrait of Grand Duke Vladimir is part of the pre-war collection of the Alupka museum as it is known to have come from the State Hermitage Museum in the 1930s.

The left side of the oval bears an inscription ‘S. Zaryanko 1867’. The canvas is painted with oil.