PRINCE PAUL TROUBETZKOY (RUSSIAN, 1866-1938)

The son of a Russian prince and American songstress, the largely self-taught sculptor Prince Paul Troubetzkoy found great success Europe and the United States as he crisscrossed the world's major capitals sculpting portraits of the early twentieth century leading cultural and political figures, including Leo Tolstoy, Auguste Rodin, Henry de Rothschild, George Bernard Shaw, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Having grown up in Italy, Troubetzkoy eventually moved to Russia in 1898 where he taught sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts and between 1899 and 1909 completed an equestrian monument of Tsar Alexander III for Znamenskaya Sqaure, St. Petersburg (now in the State Russian Museum). It was during this period that the artist met and quickly married Elin Sofie Sundström. Elin served as both a travel companion and model for Troubetzkoy, taking on numerous guises for his works from basic street garb to kimonos. However, in the present work Elin is depicted as herself, an aristocratic princess standing gracefully in evening dress, giving a glimpse into the glamorous life of society's elite that the couple enjoyed during the final years of the Belle Epoque.