Portrait of Prince Iwan Bariatinski (1772-1825)

This 1803 portrait of Prince Iwan Bariatinski at the Pushkin Museum depicts a Russian nobleman during Vigée Le Brun’s extraordinarily productive St. Petersburg years. The Baryatinsky family belonged to Russia’s highest nobility, and their patronage reflects Vigée Le Brun’s complete integration into Russian court society. Vigée Le Brun was the most technically accomplished and socially successful woman painter of the eighteenth century, achieving membership of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1783 and a clientele that extended from the French royal family to the courts of Russia, Austria, and Italy during her decade of exile following the Revolution. Her portrait manner combined the neoclassical formal values of her training with a quality of feminine intimacy and emotional warmth that made her portraits of women and children especially celebrated. Her ability to make her sitters appear simultaneously dignified and approachable was the technical foundation of her social success.

The male portrait shows assured handling of military costume and decorations. Vigée Le Brun applies warm, flattering light to masculine features while maintaining the dignity appropriate to aristocratic rank.