Portrait of Alexander Petrovich Tormasov

"Portrait of Alexander Petrovich Tormasov" - a picture of George Doe and his workshop from the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace.

George Doe and workshop

Portrait of Alexander Petrovich Tormasov . Around 1819-1821

Canvas, oil. 70 × 62.5 cm

State Hermitage , St. Petersburg

( inv. GE-7816 )

The picture is a bust portrait of Major General Baron Alexander Petrovich Tormasov from the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace ^[1] .

During the Patriotic War of 1812, the cavalry general Tormasov commanded the 3rd Reserve Observatory Army and at the very beginning of the war the Russian troops under his command defeated the Saxon auxiliary corps of General G. H. Klengel , then fought against the Austro-Skorson army at Gorodechno . After unification with the Danube army, he surrendered command to Admiral P.V. Chichagov and left for M.I. Kutuzov . Soon he was appointed commander of the Main Army, led the battles of Maloyaroslavets and the Red , for the victory in the latter was awarded the Order of St. Andrew the First Called . In the foreign campaign of 1813, he was in the battle of Lutzen , after which he left the army under the pretext of illness and no longer participated in military operations against Napoleon ^[2] .

He is depicted in a general's uniform, introduced for cavalry generals on April 6, 1814 (a red edging is not mistakenly shown on the side of the uniform); Andrew's ribbon is thrown over the shoulder. On board the uniform of the crosses of the orders of St. Alexander Nevsky and St. George 2nd class; the silver medal “In memory of the Patriotic War of 1812” on the St. Andrew’s ribbon and stars of the Orders of St. Andrew the First-Called, St. George of the 2nd class and St. Vladimir of the 1st degree ^[3] . Signed on the frame with an error in the last name: A. P. Tormazov, General from Cavalry .

Portrait of the work of K. Ya. Reichel, 1813, GIM .

After the Napoleonic Wars, Tormasov was the Moscow military governor and accordingly resided permanently in Moscow. Since he died at the end of 1819, the portrait of Tormasov by K. Ya. Reichel , written in 1813, was sent to Dow to make a copy. There is a letter from the chairman of the commission of petitions of a real secret adviser V. S. Lansky , dated November 1821, addressed to the duty general of the General Staff A. A. Zakrevsky asking for the return of the "portrait of the late general from cavalry of Count Tormasov, painted in oils or paints" ; on this letter there is a note that on January 19, 1822 it was returned to the owners. Accordingly, it is considered that the portrait for the Military Gallery was painted by Dow until November 1821, the finished portrait was accepted into the Hermitage on September 7, 1825 ^[4] . At the beginning of the 20th century, the prototype portrait was listed in the collection of the Imperial Historical Museum and was published by Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich ^[5] . Compared with the portrait from GME Dow, the gallery portrait “modernized” the uniform (instead of a double-breasted old model with buttons in two rows, a single-breasted new sample is shown) and added a commemorative medal of the Patriotic War of 1812.

In the 1840s, in the workshop of I. P. Pesotsky , a portrait by I. Klukvin was made in lithography , published in the book "Emperor Alexander I and his Companions" and subsequently repeatedly reproduced ^[6] . In part of the circulation, the lithograph by Paul Petit’s workshop according to Hüth’s drawing was used, and the lithograph according to W. Doll’s drawing was also printed in this workshop. All lithographs among themselves are significantly different execution style.