Johann Friedrich August Tischbein

Lepke, Berlin, 1 April 1930, lot 48, sold for DM 1200
Private collection, New York
Parke-Bernet, New York, 5 March 1942, lot 49
Collection of Dr Ernst Schwarz
Christie's London, Important Paintings by Old Masters, 26 June 1959, lot 40, sold for 100 guineas
Collection of Guy Bolton, New York
Schaeffer Galleries, New York
Christie's Amsterdam, European Noble and Private Collections incl. Fine Paintings, 14-16 December 2010, lot 671

Yakov Dmitrievich Lanskoy was the brother of General Alexander Dmitrievich Lanskoy, a favourite and lover of Catherine the Great, although 30 years her junior. The Empress’s generosity extended to the whole Lanskoy family; the male relatives were promoted up the ranks and the female were found high-ranking husbands. In 1782 Yakov, the elder of the two brothers, tried to elope with a foreign mistress and Catherine had to ask the authorities to apprehend him in Bar-le Duc and disentangle him from this inauspicious passion. Perhaps it was this episode which turned Yakov against Catherine, because despite the riches, awards and promotions she bestowed on the family, after Alexander’s death from diphtheria at the age of 26, Yakov commissioned a portrait of the Last Judgement depicting the Lanskoys in heaven and his brother burning below in the fires of Gehenna.

The present lot forms a pair with a portrait by Fedor Rokotov of Lanskoy’s second wife, Praskovia Nikolaevna Lanskaya (State Tretyakov Gallery) which has an identical frame.