Fyodor Rokotov

Fyodor Rokotov was one of the finest Russian portrait painters of the eighteenth century. His portraits are soft and intimate, with faces emerging from smoky, warm backgrounds and eyes that seem to hold a private thought.

Born to a family of serfs near Moscow, he gained his freedom and studied at the St Petersburg Academy of Arts, becoming an Academician in 1765. He then moved to Moscow, where he painted Catherine the Great, the nobility and the city’s leading families. His portrait of Alexandra Struyskaya (1772), now in the Tretyakov Gallery, is sometimes called the Russian Mona Lisa.

His portrait of the young Count Bobrinsky shows his gentle light and delicate handling of skin.