Vladimir Borovikovsky

Vladimir Borovikovsky was the leading portrait painter in Russia around 1800, and his portraits have the tender, dreamy mood of Sentimentalism. Young women lean on a pedestal or pause in a park in soft, silvery light, their expressions thoughtful and a little wistful.

Born in 1757 in Myrhorod, in Ukraine, into a Cossack family, he was the son of an icon painter and began by painting icons himself. He moved to St Petersburg in 1788, studied privately with Dmitry Levitzky and Johann Baptist Lampi, and became an academician in 1795. He painted about 500 portraits, including Catherine the Great Walking in Tsarskoye Selo (1794), the Portrait of Maria Lopukhina (1797) in the Tretyakov Gallery, and Emperor Paul I. In later years he returned to religious work, painting icons for the Kazan Cathedral. He died in St Petersburg in 1825.

His portraits of Count Samoilov and E. B. Rodzianko show his skill with more formal sitters.