Between 1795 and 1801 the portrait was kept in the Small Cabinet in the Pavlovsk Palace and was considered to be painted by Johann Gottfried Tannauer. In the 1980s G. Bartoshek suggested that the painting was created by Antoine Pesne. A shoulder-length portrait of Peter the Great was painted into an already existing composition of a full-length portrait with battle scene on the bottom right. Pesne painted the portrait in Havelberg in November 1716 while the Russian tsar was staying at the court of King Frederick William I of Prussia. This fact was reported by a newspaper published in Berlin at that time, mentioning that the only part painted from life was Peter’s face. The portrait is also mentioned in the travel diary of Peter the Great. In 1872 the portrait underwent an unfortunate restoration in the Imperial Hermitage. It wasn’t evacuated and was seriously damaged during the occupation of Pavlovsk. The painting was extensively renovated by the State Hermitage during the period from 2011 to 2015. The research conducted during the restoration proved that the canvas used for the added piece (the original shoulder-length portrait) is identical to the one used for the rest of the painting.