Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy (1645 – February 17, 1729) Count (1724), statesman and diplomat. Son of Okolnichy Andrei Tolstoy and Solomonida Miloslavskaya (a distant relative of Tsaritsa Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya). Took part in the Streltsy Uprising (1682), but after the uprising was successfully squashed, he switched sides and defected to Peter the Great. During the years 1701–1714 he was ambassador in Constantinople. He was appointed senator (1714) and president of the College of Commerce. In 1717 he convinced Tsarevich Alexis; who was hiding in Naples, to return to Russia, which made him one of the closest confidants of Peter the Great. In 1718 he was awarded the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle the First-Called. Tolstoy was in charge of the Secret Chancellery. In 1727 he was sentenced to death for conspiracy, but instead was sent to live in the Solovetsky Monastery.

This portrait was acquired by the Hermitage as a painting by an unknown artist. A 1966 catalogue says that it was created by Johann Gottfried Tannauer (?) (State Hermitage, 1966, № 51). The iconography of the work makes it close to the portrait of Pyotr Tolstoy from the collection of the State Tolstoy Museum (Moscow), which is signed and dated “Joh. Gottfrird Tannauer S. Petersbourg Anno 1719,” and a portrait from the collection of the State Russian Museum. Tolstoy is depicted with the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle the First-Called that he received in February 1718.