Nikolai Alekseev (1813-1880)

While Nikolai Alekseev is best known for the mosaics he completed for St Isaac's Cathedral in St Petersburg, he was also a talented portraitist. The present work reflects the artist's burgeoning interest in important writers of his era, an interest which would become even more apparent by the 1860s following Alekseev's numerous paintings based on literary works by Alexander Pushkin and Ivan Krylov.

In addition to its technical virtuosity, this work is of notable historical significance: it was apparently acquired at auction by the well-known engraver, Nikolai Utkin, also a great admirer of Pushkin. Utkin's portrait of Pushkin, requested by the poet the day before his untimely death, is one of the artist's most widely known works. True to his word, Utkin completed the commission and presented it to Pushkin's family.