Portrait n. N. Demidova

The artist is Tonchi

Prince Nikolai Nikitich Demidov, represented on the portrait, the owner of the Ural factories, a collector and philanthropist, began the adjutant service under the prince of g. AND. Potemkin during the Turkish War. Under Paul I, he was appointed a member of the chamber college with the rank of secret adviser and as a sign of the special arrangement of the emperor-the commander of the Order of St. John Jerusalemsky. In 1800, after marriage to the young beauty Baroness Elizabeth Stroganova, Nikolai Nikitich resigned and goes to Europe.
The work was performed before Demidov’s departure by an Italian painter, an honorary member of the Bologna Academy of Fine Arts, with. Tonchi, the creator of numerous portraits of the Moscow and St. Petersburg nobility.
In 1797, Tonchi arrived in St. Petersburg and begins work on the image of Demidov, depicting it against the backdrop of snowy and wild Ural mountains with a piece of rock in his hands. It was here, in the Urals, the active activity of the ancestors of Demidov – owners of mines and iron plants unfolded. Nikolai Nikitich himself contributed a lot to the development of mining, as well as his scientific study – his unique collection of rarities in 1813, he completely sacrificed Moscow University.
Compared to the mountain landscape, the data is quite generally, schematically, the face and figure of the young prince are written with amazing reliability, it was not without reason that contemporaries noted the unusual similarity of the models and portraits of Tonchi and said that they “definitely come out of the canvas”.
The Perm art gallery contains a reduced version of the portrait, which dates from 1797 on the basis of an illegible inscription on the back.

Demidov Nikolay Nikitich (1773–1828) – a descendant of the Tula blacksmith Nikita Demidov, who received in 1720 from Emperor Peter I Private to develop iron and copper -containing ores in the Urals and laid the foundation for the Demidov dynasty. Military, statesman, diplomat. Exhibition catalog in Malaga “Seasons. Works from the collection of the Russian Museum “. 2015. With. 23.