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Princess Tufiakin - 1801-1802
oil on canvas, 34.6 x 28.25 in, 87.9 x 71.8 cm
Ekaterina Osipovna Tyufyakina (née Khorvat) (1777-1802). The daughter of the Governor of Ecaterinoslav and the wife of Prince Peter Ivanovich Tyufyakin (1769-1845) an important court official, who later served as the Director of the Imperial Theaters from 1819-1821 under Alexander I. She died tragically young at age 24 or 25. She was alive when Vigee Le Brun left Moscow in 1800 bound for St Petersburg.
"One of those I admired most , was a young lady who shortly after married the Prince Tufakin. Her features were very fine and regular, but her expression was extremely melancholy. When she married I began her portrait, but could only finish the head in Moscow, so that I carried the picture away to complete it at St Petersburg, where I soon learnt of the death of the pretty original. She was barely seventeen. I painted her as Iris, with a flowing scarf, seated on clouds. - Memoirs Chap. XXIV.
View a larger image of this painting. Sotheby's will be auctioning this portrait in New York in June 2010.
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