“Portrait of Leonty Leontievich Bennigsen” - a painting by George Dow and his workshop from the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace.
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| George Dow and the workshop | ||
| Portrait of Leonty Leontyevich Bennigsen . Around 1819-1822 | ||
| Canvas, oil. 70 × 62.5 cm | ||
| State Hermitage Museum , St. Petersburg | ||
| ( inv. GE-7817 ) | ||
The painting is a chest portrait of the cavalry general Leonty Leontyevich Bennigsen from the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace [1] .
During the Patriotic War of 1812, Bennigsen was first at the Main Apartment without a post, and after the appointment of M.I. Kutuzov, he headed the General Staff Headquarters of all armies, led the Tarutin battle , in which he was wounded. From the beginning of the Overseas Campaign he was appointed commander of the Polish Army, for his distinction in the Battle of the Peoples near Leipzig he received the title of count , and for the siege of Hamburg he was awarded the Order of St. George 1st degree [2] .
Depicted in the general's uniform, introduced for cavalry generals on April 6, 1814, in white gloves, leaning on a saber hilt, on the epaulettes are the monogram of Emperor Alexander I. An Andrew’s ribbon is thrown over his shoulder. On the neck there are crosses of the Austrian Military Order of Maria Theresa and the Swedish Military Order of the Sword of the 1st degree, as well as the sign of the Danish Order of the Elephant ; on the chest on the right are the stars of the orders of St. Andrew the First-Called , St. George of the 1st degree, St. Vladimir of the 1st degree and the Hanover Order of the 1st degree with swords, near the St. George star there is a sign of the Swedish Military Order of the Sword of the 1st degree. To the left below the epaulet is the artist’s hard-to-see signature: painted from nature by Geo Dawe RA . On the back side of the picture there is an inscription: Arranged from the old canvas on the new one by A. Mitrokhin of 1832 S. Petersburg [3] . Signature on the frame with an error in the last name: Graf L. L. Beningsen, General of the Cavalry .
The circumstances of the portrait were not clarified. The finished portrait was taken to the Hermitage on September 7, 1825 [4] .
There is an engraving by E. I. Geitman , dated April 1, 1823 and executed in London by Messrs Cilnaghi, commissioned by St. Petersburg bookseller S. Florent. The engraving completely repeats the composition of the portrait by Dow, however, Bennigsen is depicted there in a generational form sitting in an armchair; the signature indicates that it was taken from the original Dow of 1821 [5] - accordingly, there was another, possibly earlier version of the gallery portrait, its current location is unknown. One of the preserved prints of the engraving is stored in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow (paper, engraving with a dotted line, 43.7 × 33.2 cm, inventory number GR-37600) [6] ; several prints are also in the Hermitage collection. Due to the fact that navigation in St. Petersburg usually stops in October, and the delivery of originals to London for engraving was carried out by sea, it is believed that the gallery portrait was made between the arrival of Dow in Russia in June 1819 and the autumn of 1822 [4] .
Notes
- ↑ State Hermitage Museum. “Dow, George and the workshop.” "Portrait of Leonty Leontyevich Bennigsen."
- ↑ Dictionary , p. 316-317.
- ↑ Renne, 2009 , p. 266.
- ↑ 1 2 Podmazo, 2013 , p. 121.
- ↑ Rovinsky, t. 1 , stb. 399, No. 32.
- ↑ State catalog. RF - Geytman, Egor Ivanovich. "Portrait of Leonty Leontyevich Bennigsen"
Literature
- Podmazo A. A. Images of the heroes of the Patriotic War of 1812: Military Gallery of the Winter Palace. - M .: Russian Knights, 2013 .-- 864 p. - ISBN 978-5-903389-62-9 .
- Renne E. P. British Painting of the 16th — 19th Centuries: Collection Catalog. - SPb. : Publishing House of the State Hermitage Museum, 2009. - 416 p. - ISBN 978-5-93572-376-7 .
- Rovinsky D.A. Detailed Dictionary of Russian Engraved Portraits. Edition with 700 phototype portraits. - SPb. : Printing House of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1886. - T. I: A — D.
- Dictionary of Russian generals, participants in the hostilities against the army of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1812-1815. // Russian archive. The history of the Fatherland in the evidence and documents of the XVIII — XX centuries. : Collection. - M .: TRITE studio N. Mikhalkova , 1996. - T. VII . - S. 316-317 . - ISSN 0869-20011 . (Comm. A. A. Podmazo )