Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky)

Nesterov painted Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky) in 1917, one of the most turbulent years in Russian history — the year of two revolutions that would abolish the Romanov dynasty and ultimately reshape the Orthodox Church's role in Russian life. Anthony Khrapovitsky was at that moment one of the most prominent and politically active hierarchs in Russia, a candidate for Patriarch when the council restored the Patriarchate later that year, and a fierce opponent of the liberal reforms then reshaping the church. Nesterov's portrait, now in the Tretyakov Gallery, captures a man of enormous ecclesiastical ambition and theological conservatism at the height of his influence, just before the Soviet era would make his kind of church politics impossible. The portrait stands as both a character study and an inadvertent historical document, preserving the face of Old Russia's ecclesiastical leadership at the moment of its political extinction.

Oil paint on canvas, the portrait employs the psychological intensity Nesterov had refined through decades of depicting religious figures. Hierarchical vestments and the episcopal cross provide visual counterpoint to the sitter's forceful expression. Nesterov uses warm, focused lighting to draw the viewer into direct confrontation with the archbishop's formidable personality.