Portrait of Count Anton Devier
First quarter of the 18th century
- oil on canvas. 86 x 72 (oval)
Received in 1941 from the State Museum of Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR (as part of the collection of the Department of History of Everyday Life, State Russian Museum); earlier – acquired in 1938 from I. I. Daragan, descendant of the Deviers.- State Hermitage, St. Petersburg
In Hermitage publications, the portrait is dated the first quarter of the 18th century.
Anton Divier (1682?–June 24, 1745) Count (1726), General in Chief (1744). Descendant of an ancient Jewish family that had moved from Portugal to Holland. Served in the Dutch Navy. In 1697 he came to Russia being invited by Peter the Great. In 1711 he was appointed Adjutant General. In 1712 Divier married Anna Menshikova, sister of Alexander Menshikov, by Peter the Great’s wish and against her brother’s will. Divier was the first General-Chief of Police of St Petersburg (1718–1727). In 1725 he became Major General, and in 1726 he was appointed Lieutenant General. In 1727 he was deprived of his noble title and rank and banished to Siberia. In 1739 he took command of the Okhotsk Harbor. He returned from the exile in 1743. Empress Elizabeth Petrovna gave him back his former title and orders. In 1744 he was promoted to General in Chief, and in 1744 he was once again appointed General-Chief of Police of St Petersburg.