Vasily Tropinin

Anonymous sale, Stockholm, Stockholms Auktionsverk, 1978.

The present portrait of Prince Mikhail Andreevich Obolensky (1806–1873) is closely related to an earlier portrait of the prince by Tropinin, where he is also depicted as a highwayman. Known as The Bandit or The Robber, the earlier work dates from 1840 and is now at the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus in Minsk. Tropinin painted portraits of Obolensky repeatedly, the earliest being a work from around 1812, when the prince was still a child, which is now at the Tropinin Museum in Moscow.

Born into serfdom in Novgorod Governorate, Tropinin started drawing at an early age. His owner sent him to St Petersburg, where he attended classes at the Imperial Academy in his free time, but he was recalled by his owner to his estate in Ukraine in 1804. It was only in 1823, at the age of 47, that Tropinin received his freedom and subsequently settled in Moscow.

Prince Mikhail Obolensky was born in Moscow and after a military career during which he saw action in the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29, he was transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and later became director of the Moscow Main Archive of Foreign Affairs. He also published extensively on Russian history. His portrait by Karl Bryullov is now at the State Tretyakov in Moscow.