Portrait of Peter I
1720–1730s
- oil on canvas. 78.5 x 61 (oval)
Received in 1851 from the Imperial Academy of Arts Provenance: Winter Palace (until 1762)- State Hermitage, St. Petersburg
In the “inventory” of academic paintings belonging to Kirill Golovachevsky dated 1773 the portrait is attributed to Andrei Matveyev. The portrait belongs to the iconographic type introduced by Carel de Moor, who painted companion portraits of Peter the Great and Catherine I in person in 1717 in the Hague. In 1718 Moor’s portrait of Peter the Great was sent to Russia. In the 1859 inventory of the Winter Palace the portrait was mentioned as a work of Andrei Matveyev based on the original painting completed by Carel de Moor; even though Fyodor Bruni and Carl Timoleon von Neff thought it was painted by Moor himself. Subsequently, researchers proved that it was Matveyev who created the portrait; they also dated the portrait stating that it was completed before 1727: it must have been painted after Peter’s death and before Matveyev came back to St Petersburg.