Ekaterina II Velikaya

Main article: History of Russia

Catherine II (Ekaterina Alekseevna; Catherine the Great; nee Sophie Augusta Frederika Angalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, German Sophie Auguste Friederike von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, in Orthodoxy Ekaterina Alekseevna; April 21 [May 2] 1729, Stettin, Prussia - November 6 [17], 1796, Winter Palace, Petersburg) - Empress of All-Russian from 1762 to 1796.

Biography

1754: The Birth of Paul's Son

September 20, 1754 in St. Petersburg, Ekaterina Alekseevna had a son, Pavel.

1756

Anna Rosina de Gask (Lisievskaya) (1713-1783). Portrait of Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich and Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna. 1756. Oil on canvas. 207x143 see National Museum of Sweden, Stockholm

1761: Favorite Grigory Orlov

In 1761 (?) Ekaterina Alekseevna wished to meet 26-year-old Donzhuan Grigory Orlov. Orlov's bold, decisive character attracted her sympathy and she entrusted her fate to him.

Antropov Alexey Petrovich. Portrait of Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna, 1761

1762

Facilitating the appointment of Orlov as treasurer of artillery and fortification to finance the coup

With her assistance, Orlov, who had just been promoted to captain, was appointed on February 23 (March 6), 1762, the tsalmeister (treasurer) of the Office of the Main Artillery and Fortification, which provided significant assistance to the palace coup in 1762, as it put him beyond suspicion of proximity to the empress and at the same time gave him the opportunity to have the funds necessary to promote the planned coup.

Mourning, the birth of a son from Grigory Orlov and accession

The portrait of Catherine II in mourning is one of many portraits of the empress painted by her court painter, the Dane Vigilius Eriksen. He also painted her predecessor on the throne - Empress Elizabeth Petrovna.

Portrait of Catherine II in Mourning, Vigilius Eriksen. Size - 20 x 18. The material is copper. The technique is oil. Tretyakov Gallery. Acquired from Vysheslavtseva. 1917

Eriksen's reputation in the imperial court was extremely high. His main model was Catherine II. The artist's contemporary Jacob Stelin wrote: "The most similar and most complete portraits of Her Majesty came down from the easel of Eriksen."

The Danish artist painted at least 30 portraits of the empress in various painting techniques, compositions, formats, costumes and poses. Eriksen wrote to Catherine in a magnificent, lush front toilet, in a national folk Russian costume, standing in the palace interior among mirrors and draperies. On his canvases, she is also represented among the greenery of the park, in a guards uniform, confidently sitting on horseback on a white horse. He wrote her full face, in profile, in full height and gritty. These portraits do not reveal the inner world of the depicted, they are rather the sum of knowledge and observations of the model.

Catherine was extremely pleased with these portraits. The empress sent some of them as gifts to her foreign correspondents and foreign courts. She talked about them in letters to the enlightening philosopher Baron M. Grimm. These works are in different museum collections - in the Hermitage, Tsarskoye Selo and others.

In a small chamber portrait, Catherine is depicted in mourning, in which she dressed after the death of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna (December 25, 1761). During a long mourning, Catherine almost did not depart from the coffin of the deceased empress, which greatly attracted many influential persons to Catherine at the Russian court. They saw this as a tribute and deep respect, which was given first by the Grand Duchess, and then by the Empress, a German by nationality, the deceased Russian queen.

Catherine bore mourning at first after her accession after the murder of her husband Peter III (July 7, 1762). As Anna Korndorf noted, ^[1], Catherine also had intimate reasons that limited her participation in high life: a closed black dress and the ability to appear less often at public social events helped her hide her pregnancy. On April 11, 1762, the empress gave birth to a son, the future A.G. Bobrinsky, whose father was Grigory Orlov.

The mourning robe, which depicts Catherine, included a black wide dress with white stripes - plaques, as well as a headdress - a black cap with a schnip, completely covering the hair. On top of the dress on Catherine is a ribbon and the star of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called, which she laid on herself on the day of the palace coup that enthroned her.

The miniature of the work, the attention to the details of the costume, as well as the cuteness of the model's face testify to the influence of the Rococo style.

1763

Fedor Stepanovich Rokotov. Portrait of Catherine II, 1763

1765

Antropov Alexey Petrovich. Portrait of Empress Catherine II, 1765

Heinrich Buchholz. A large ceremonial portrait of Empress Catherine II. Depicted with the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called (ribbon and star). State Russian Museum. Oil on canvas. 285 x 213 At the bottom left is the signature and date: H. Buchholtz px. 1765. She entered: 1927 from the Museum of the Exquisite Cult of the Society "Old Petersburg" - "New Leningrad" (Leningrad); previously - the school of St. Peter (Petrograd). D.A. Rovinsky believed that Buchholz copied the portrait of Catherine II from the original V. Eriksen (Rovinsky. Portraits, vol. 4, stb 396).

1772

Eriksen Vigilius. Portrait of Catherine II in Shugai and Kokoshnik, 1772

Heinrich Buchholz. Portrait of Empress Catherine II, 1772, Oil Canvas. 51 x 42. Russian Museum. It is depicted in a small imperial crown and mantle, beaten by an ermine. Over the right shoulder is the ribbon of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called, a star on his chest. A thread of large pearls is woven into the hair.

1782

Levitsky Dmitry Grigorievich. Portrait of Catherine II, 1782

1787

Levitsky Dmitry Grigorievich. Portrait of Catherine II, 1787

1796

Drozhdin Petr Semenovich. Portrait of Catherine II, 1796

Correspondence

Catherine II conducted all correspondence in French. She made no secret of her errors in French and said she needed a "laundress" to "erase" what the empress wrote. All her correspondence passed through the hands of any "laundress." In normal cases, these were secretaries. She previously sent drafts of her letters to Voltaire to Paris to the Russian envoy D.A. Golitsyn; he edited the sent, sent back to Catherine, and only then the letter to Volter was copied ^[2]

Creativity

Libretto for operas

Catherine II elected Vasily Pashkevich to compose music for her fairy tale "Fevey." The premiere of the opera of the same name took place on April 19, 1786 at the Hermitage Theater in St. Petersburg.

Evstignei Fomin, who studied with Italian masters, composed the music for her libretto "Novgorod Bogatyr Boeslaevich." The opera premiered on November 27, 1786 in St. Petersburg.

The plot of the tale of Fuflych-Bogatyr was proposed by Count Orlov. Catherine based on this tale wrote a parody of her cousin Gustav III, King of Sweden. The libretto was set to music by Vicente Martino y Soler, a Spanish composer who settled in Russia in 1788. The opera Gorebogatyr Kosometovich was first presented on March 30, 1789 at the Hermitage Theater. The opera overture of three traditional Russian melodies was a great success, and the great princes Alexander and Konstantin knew its text by heart. However, Catherine, in order to avoid a political scandal, placed the following note in the printed libretto: "Do not perform in the city theater in the presence of foreign ministers."

Catherine wished Domenico Cimarosa to compose music for her drama on the early history of Russia, entitled "The Initial Management of Oleg" (1786), but he worked too slowly, so she replaced him with Giuseppe Sarti, who wrote the opera with Pashkevich and Milan musician K. Cannobio. The premiere took place on October 15, 1790 at the Hermitage Theater.

Finally, the opera based on her libretto "Fedul with Children" was composed by Vasily Pashkevich and Martin-i Soler, and its premiere took place on January 16, 1791 in St. Petersburg.

Favourites

• Orlov Grigory Grigorievich: 1761 (26 years old) in the summer of 1772
• Vasilchikov Alexander Semenovich: September 1772 (26 years old) to the summer of 1774
• Potemkin Grigory Alexandrovich: since November 1774, husband
• Zavadovsky Peter Vasilievich: November 1776 to July 1777
• Zorich Semyon Gavrilovich: June 1777 to June 1778
• Ivan Nikolaevich Korsakov: July 1778 to October 10, 1779
• Lanskoy Alexander Dmitrievich: April 1780 to July 25, 1784
• Ermolov Alexander Petrovich: February 1785 to June 28, 1786
• Dmitriev-Mamonov Alexander Matveevich: July 1786 to November 1789
• Zubov Platon Alexandrovich: July 1789 to November 6, 1796

Yard

Conductors

Main article: Music in Russia in the XVIII century

• Vincenzo Manfredini: in Russia from 1761 to 1765
• Baldassare Galuppi: 1765 to 1768
• Tommaso Traetta: 1768 to 1775
• Giovanni Paiziyello: 1776 to 1783
• Giuseppe Sarti: from 1784 to 1787
• Domenico Cimarosa: 1787 to 1791

Palaces

• Winter Palace
• Tsarskoye Selo

Family

• Peter III - spouse
• Paul I - son (born September 20, 1754)
• A.G. Bobrinsky - son from Grigory Orlov (born April 11, 1762)

Other portraits

Unknown artist. Portrait of Catherine II, the end of the XVIII century. Yaroslavl Museum-Reserve

Unknown artist. Portrait of Catherine II. The first half of the 19th century. Yaroslavl Museum-Reserve

Шаблон:XVIII Century Music CD

Notes