Tuesday 10 April 2012

Jean-Laurent Mosnier and Empress Elizabeth Alexejevna

'Empress Elizabeth Alexejevna' (1807) by Jean-Laurent Mosnier; State Art Museum, 
Nizhni Novgorod, Russia

Today's painter is unknown to me and I did not choose him right away but because I didn't like the other options, I came back to him and chose this painting. The artist's name is Jean-Laurent Mosnier, born in 1743 and died on 10 April 1808. Wikipedia doesn't have an English page on him (or there is one but without content), so I hope you read French. Mosnier was trained in Paris as a miniature painter and fled to London in 1790 after the outbreak of the French Revolution. From London, he went to Hamburg and then to St. Petersburg in 1801. He was accepted into the St. Petersburg Academy in 1802 and became a professor there in 1806. He painted portraits of the imperial family, amongst others this painting of the Empress Elizabeth, wife of the Russian Tsar Alexander I. I love the fine details of the dress and jewelry.

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