Lorenzo Bartolini Italian, 1777-1850

Despite a reputation as a dandy during his youth, Joyneville maintained that during his reign Alexander never gave a painter a sitting for his portrait.  However, this is not strictly true as Sir Thomas Lawrence’s sittings with the Tsar between 1814 and 1818 in London and Aix are well documented.  Alexander is said to have refused to give the great Italian sculptor, Antonio Canova, the opportunity to do his portrait, although Bertel Thorvaldsen was granted a sitting during a visit to Warsaw in 1820, which resulted in a marble bust, now in the Hermitage.  It is therefore probable that Bartolini made his portrait of Alexander I without ever having met the Tsar.

Lorenzo Bartolini was an interesting choice of sculptor for such an important commission.  He trained and worked in Carrara at a time of French dominance, and after serving some time in the French forces and spending some years further studying in Paris, Bartolini was a firm Bonapartist.  Indeed around 1814 he followed Napoleon to Elba.  

The bust is signed by the sculptor but is not dated.  An autograph gesso model for the carving on the column is preserved in the Bartolini gipsoteca in the Accademia, Florence.  The iconography of this relief with a winged figure of Victory writing over the accoutrements of war, including Napoleonic emblems, suggests that it refers to either a period of peace between Russia and France or one of Russian military dominance over France.  This presents two options for the dating. Either it could date to immediately after the meeting of the two emperors at Tilsit in June 1807 and before the French invasion of Russia in the Summer of 1812. Or it could commemorate the defeat of Napoleon after the Battle of Paris in 1814.  Whilst there would be a certain irony to Bartolini, the staunch Bonapartist sculptor, making a portait of his hero's arch rival after 1814, it seems more likely that the commission dates to when Bartolini was the prime Napoleonic sculptor in Tuscany in the period 1807-1812.  

In the absence of any relevant documents and the loss of the original lettering on the column, the patron of this bust is uncertain. However, as the bust of Catherine appears to have been carved specifically as a pendant it is apparent that a strong political message was intended, which supported Catherine the Great’s influence over Alexander.   Alexander is represented al antica, emphasising his affinities with Alexander the Great and his ambitions as the saviour of European liberty.  The use of art, and in particular sculpture, as such overt propaganda was completely characteristic of the Napoleonic rule in Tuscany masterminded by Napoleon's sister, Elisa Bacchioci, which supports a date between 1807 and 1812 for these busts.