Portrait of Peter I on His Death Bed
1725
- oil on canvas. 48,5 х 63
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 (from 1848) – the Emperor Peter I Gallery of the Imperial Hermitage; collection of Demyan Kochubei.- State Hermitage, St. Petersburg
The portrait was painted from life, right after the emperor died during the night on January 28, 1725 when his body remained in a small parlor on the second floor of the Winter Palace; on January 29 his remains were moved to the Great Hall. According to the information provided by Alexander Vasilchikov, D.V. Kochubey, who was a member of the State Council, bought the painting in Holland and gave it to Nicholas I. Some sources of the 19th and 20th centuries document this painting as a work of Johann Gottfried Tannauer, others – as a work of an unknown artist; subsequently the portrait was attributed to Tannauer. Tannauer’s authorship was confirmed through technological and iconographical research.