The programme was developed based on the temporary exhibition Peter the Great: His Era and His Inner Circle, which took place in the Russian Museum from December 17, 2015 to April 3, 2016.

This film is focused on Vladimir Borovikovsky, one of the talented and original artists of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He worked in the field of portrait and icon-painting. 

The theme of this publication is Russian portraits over the past hundred years, painting a vivid picture of every period in the twentieth century. The more than 400 illustrations were all taken from the collection of the State Russian Museum in St Petersburg, home to the world's largest collection of Russian art.