This painting was created during Peter the Great’s first trip abroad (1697–1698). It was painted in Holland. Peter is wearing a traditional Russian outfit: a long sable lined coat (okhabna) and a satin kaftan. On the right one can see a pavilion and a Kalmyk coming out to bring a hat to the tsar; on the left, in the distance, one can see a view of Azov. The Russian ambassador in Berlin, Baron Andrei Budberg, bought the painting from a Berlin bookseller in the 1860s. There is a legend that says that a Dutchman left it there as collateral in 1812. The bookseller presented the painting to the Berlin Museum, where it was confirmed to be an original piece by van der Werff. The director of the museum offered it to King Frederick William IV of Prussia for purchase so that he could make it a gift to the Russian emperor. But the king’s disease prevented him from doing so, so Baron Budberg bought the painting himself and gave it to Emperor Alexander II. Until 1917, the portrait was kept in the emperor’s parlor in the Great Palace of Tsarskoye Selo. Andrei Budberg suggested that the painting had been created by the younger brother of Adrian van der Werff, Peter. Today, there are no doubts about the fact that the piece was painted by Peter van der Werff.