Johann Friedrich August Tischbein - Portrait of Yakov Dmitrievich Lanskoy - image-1

Lot 1309 Dα

Johann Friedrich August Tischbein - Portrait of Yakov Dmitrievich Lanskoy

Auction 1132 - overview Cologne
18.05.2019, 11:00 - Fine Art
Estimate: 10.000 € - 15.000 €
Result: 12.400 € (incl. premium)

Johann Friedrich August Tischbein

Portrait of Yakov Dmitrievich Lanskoy

Oil on canvas (relined). 74 x 56.5 cm (oval).

This portrait was originally housed in the Museum of Russian Art in St. Petersburg but was sold and found its way to Berlin during the Revolution. It depicts the Russian aristocrat Yakov Dmitrievich Lanskoy (1763-1808). A pendant piece depicting Lanskoy's second wife Praskovya Nicolaevna Lanskaya, painted by Fyodor Rokotov, is housed in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. Both paintings are in identical original frames.
Yakov was the younger brother of Aleksander Dmitrievich Lanskoy (1758-1784), who was the official favourite of Tsarina Catherine II of Russia from 1780 until he died aged just 26 years old. Lanskoy is refuted to have genuinely loved the Tsarina, who was 30 years his senior. He did not involve himself in politics and refused bribes and benefits. Nevertheless, the family of the young favourite, including his younger brother Yakov, doubtlessly profited from the union.
This portrait was painted whilst Johann Friedrich August Tischbein was visiting St Petersburg. He travelled to the Russian capital in 1806 in order to organise the estate of his recently deceased brother, the architect Ludwig Philipp Tischbein. He remained for three years in St. Petersburg, painting numerous portraits of members of the Russian royal court. Tischbein was already an acclaimed and widely travelled painter and at that point at the zenith of his career. The young artist had previously taken educational sojourns to France, the Netherlands, Rome, and Naples, where he met Jacques Louis David and Anton Raphael Mengs. Further stations of his career included the courts of Prince Friedrich von Waldeck and Leopold III of Anhalt-Dessau, and after that those at Berlin and Dresden. He later went on to become director of the Leipzig Art Academy in 1800, which earned him the moniker “Leipziger Tischbein”.

Provenance

Auctioned by Lepke, Berlin, 1.4.1930, lot 48 ("Gemälde alter Meister aus einem ausländischen Museum, Sammlung des Grafen H. und anderer Privatbesitz", sold for 1,200 RM). – Private collection, New York. – Auctioned by Parke-Bernet, New York, 5.3.1942, lot 49. – Collection of Dr. Ernst Schwarz. – Auctioned by Christie’s, London, 26.6.1959, lot 40. – Collection of Guy Bolton, New York. – Schaeffer Galleries, New York. – Auctioned by Christie’s, Amsterdam, 14.-16.12.2010, lot 671. – Austrian private collection.