Paintings and Miniatures

Miniature portrait of the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich in childhood

    Miniature portrait of the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich in childhood

    Russia

    The 1850-1860s

    Ivory, glass, metal, enamel, lapis lazuli, leather; watercolours, gouache, casting, gilding

    15.5 х 12.2 х 8.7 cm

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    Double-sided portrait miniature with a chest-high portrait of a boy in a coral-coloured Russian-style shirt is inserted in the oval glass plate. It is fixed flexible. The viewer sees not only the face of the child, but his back and neck, that is, the reverse of the miniature. The miniature is fixed on an artistically decorated stand with four Renaissance male and female figurines. The whole composition is mounted on a rectangular base lined with lapis lazuli, on the reverse side of which is the name and title of the depicted person: "ВЕЛИКIЙ КНЯЗЬ СЕРГIЙ АЛЕКСАНДРОВИЧЬ" (GRAND DUKE SERGEI ALEXANDROVICH). Presented series of portraits is stylistically and compositionally close to children's portraits of the 1850s by the Court artist Woldemar Hau (1816-1895). This miniature could be executed on the master's layout original.

    Sergei Alexandrovich (1857-1905) – the Grand Duke, the fifth son of the Emperor Alexander II (1818-1881) and the Empress Maria Alexandrovna (1824-1880). In 1884, he married the Princess Elizabeth-Alexandra-Louise-Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt (1864-1918), in Orthodoxy - Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fedorovna. The Chair of the Imperial Russian Historical Museum named after Alexander III (since 1881). Moscow Governor-General (since 1891). He died on February 4, 1905 from a terrorist bomb I.P. Kalyayev. Was buried in the church-tomb near Alekseevskaya Church of the Chudov Monastery in the Kremlin. In 1995, he was reburied in the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Savior of the Novospassky Monastery.

     


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    Инв.8279/ИЗО