Portrait of Princess Ekaterina Dmitrievna Golitsyna (1720–1761), née Cantemir, wife of D.M. Golitsyn (1721–1793)

Louis-Michel van Loo's portrait of Princess Ekaterina Dmitrievna Golitsyna (1720–1761), born Cantemir, wife of D.M. Golitsyn, dates from 1759 and represents one of the numerous Russian aristocratic sitters van Loo painted during his period as court painter to the Bourbon courts of Madrid and Paris. The Golitsyn family was among the highest Russian nobility, and the princess's Cantemir lineage connected her to the famous Romanian-Moldavian dynasty that had produced scholars and courtiers across Europe. The portrait's French Rococo elegance reflects the cosmopolitan cultural aspirations of the Russian imperial nobility.

Van Loo presents the princess in the formal French mode, with elaborate court dress rendered with meticulous attention to silk and jewel details. His ability to capture the sitter's aristocratic bearing within the elaborate decorative framework of eighteenth-century costume portraiture is fully displayed.