after Giovanni Antonio Cybei Italian, 1706-1784

RELATED LITERATURE:
C. Joyneville, Life and Times of Alexander I, London 1875,  vol.3, pp.103-104;
E.M. Almedingen, The Emperor Alexander I, London, 1964, pp. 13-63; Lorenzo Bartolini Mostra della attività di tutela, exhib.cat., Prato, Palazzo Pretorio, February 1978, pp.100-162;
I Marmi degli Zar. Gli Scultori carraresi all'Ermitage e a Petergóf, exhib. cat. Carrara, Accademia di Belle Arti, April 1996, pp.162-163, nos.7-8;
L. Passeggia, Carrara e il mercato della scultura, Milan 2005, pp.260-267;
P. Boyries, De plâtre, de marbre ou de bronze, Napoléon essai d'iconographie sculptée, Burgos, nd., pp.81-96

Around 1770, Giovanni Antonio Cybei was commissioned to make a marble portrait bust of Count Alexey Grigoryevich Orlov (1737-1807) and it is believed that the marble bust of Catherine the Great, also by Cybei, now at the Peterhof Palace was made as a pendant; both busts share a provenance from the Suvalov family. Cybei’s signed marble bust of Catherine is currently displayed in the White Dining room (see fig.1).  It is clearly the same model as the present bust, although there are several differences in the arrangement of the drapery, crown and hair.

Cybei was the leading Tuscan 18^th century sculptor based in Carrara, the home of the finest Italian white marble.  The 1996 exhibition, I Marmi degli Zar, explored the strong relationship between Russia and the Imperial court, from the time of Peter the Great to the 19^th century, with the sculptors working in Carrara and Tuscany.  Cybei would have created his grand image of Catherine the Great from engravings or paintings and his model would have remained part of his studio, available to the next generation, as was common practice.  The absence of the sculptor’s signature and differences in the details of the model suggest that the present bust may have been carved around thirty years after the marble in Peterhof at the time the bust of Alexander I was carved, and possibly in Bartolini’s workshop.