Women and children most - portraits by Ivan Makarov

Anastasia Iosifovna Ushakova, circa 1866.

Ivan Kuzmich Makarov (23 March 1822, Arzamas - 9 April 1897, Saint Petersburg), Russian portrait painter. Born the son of Kuzma Alexandrovich Makarov, a serf artist of the Penza landowner Gorikhvostov, who had received his freedom in 1815. After completing his general education, from 1834 to 1841 the younger Makarov studied with his father at the Arzamas School of Painting, Russia's first provincial art school. On the basis of submissions he sent to the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1842, he was granted the title "Neklassnogo Artist" ("Free Artist"). In 1845, he moved to Saint Petersburg, where he studied until 1852 at the Academy under the history painter Alexey Markov, and soon won the patronage of the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna. He then traveled to Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Venice, Bologna, and spent more than a year and a half in Rome before returning to St.Petersburg. On his return, he was made an academician, and he would be mostly resident in Petersburg, where he worked and taught, until his death at the age of seventy-five.

Detail of above.

Maria and Sofia Perovskaja, 1859.

Unknown Lady, circa 1860.

Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, circa 1850s.

A Girl, 1852. Identified variously as the artist's daughter and Princess Evgenia Maximilianovna of Leuchtenberg.

Evdokia Lyubimovna Khovrina née Engalycheva, 1862.

Girl [boy] With Dog, circa 1860s. Probably a portrait of Sergei Alexandrovich Stroganov.

Portrait of Unknown Girl, circa 1860s. Probably a portrait of Olga Alexandrovna Stroganova, sister of the above.

S. N. Rossova (?), circa 1860.

E. S. Kaznakova née Neklyudova, 1861.

Unknown Woman With Child, circa 1850s.

The Sheremetev children, circa 1880s:

Sergei Sergeievich.

Anna Sergeievna.

Peter Sergeievich.

Pavel Sergeievich.

Boris Sergeievich.

Varvara Pavlovna Sheremeteva née Princess Golitsyna (?), 1846.

Evdokia Alexeievna Tregubova, 1869.

Alexandra Mikhailovna Chelisheva née Verigina (?), circa 1865.

Two Children of the Tolstoy Family, 1854.

Ekaterina Feodorovna Tutcheva, circa 1850

Countess Daria Vasilievna Olsufieva, 1856.

Olga Pavlovna Stakhovich, circa 1850s.

Prince Alexander Vladimirovich Bariatinsky, circa 1850.

Empress Maria Alexandrovna, 1859.

Maria Alexandrovna Pushkina, 1849.

Unknown Woman, circa 1850s.

Portrait of a Young Girl, circa 1850s-60s. Possibly a portrait of Olga Pavlovna Shuvalova née Dolgorukova.

"Gubonina", circa 1870s.

Girl in a Boat, nd.

Baroness Sofia Nikolaievna Staal von Holstein née Shatilova, 1859.

The Arapova sisters, Olga and Varvara, circa 1860.

Portrait of an Unknown Woman, 1860.

Ivan Marakov is another artist I was completely unaware of. While looking for something else, I stumbled across an image of one of his paintings - the portrait of Anastasia Ushakova that leads off this post - and was very impressed. His flesh tones glow, and his handling of drapery and various textures is just superb. At his best, his work is very fresh, and recalls a happy blending of the portraiture of Winterhalter and Makarov's great compatriot Karl Briullov.

Portrait of Anastasia Iosifovna Ushakova. (Detail.) I find the play of light and shifts of tonality on the lace and pearls quite thrilling.

From my collection - two postcard portraits of the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, circa 1914

The original photographs were taken by the Boissonnas & Eggler studio, favored by the Imperial family at that time for their formal portraits.

This card is German; it was not at all unusual at the time for European postcards to portray the royal families of - other - countries. Of course,
the Empress was also German by birth. (Hessen und bei Rhein, to be specific). It should be noted, too, that the Empress' figure has been un-
necessarily slimmed by retouching here, both fore and aft.

***

Another pose from the same sitting.

A slightly different crop of the first image.

The tiara worn by the Empress in these photographs. It was originally made for the Empress Elisaveta Alexeievna, the wife
of Tsar Alexander I, at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Catalogued during the period the Bolsheviks were selling
off many of the country's Imperial-era treasures, it has not been seen since the mid-Twenties and is presumed broken up.

Bleu céruléen, bleu céleste, bleu turquoise

Infanta María Isabel Francisca de Asís de Borbón, Princess of Asturias, daughter of Queen Isabel II of Spain, by Vicente Palmaroli, 1866.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, as the production of pigments and dyes became ever more sophisticated, both fashion and painting were greatly impacted. From the Fifties and Sixties, particularly, with the invention and popularity of synthetic dyes, we begin to see in contemporary portraits a general brightening of color. Especially noticeable are ladies' dresses featuring strong and clear mid-range blues and blue-greens; the very fashionable cerulean blue - a cobalt derivative - was first marketed in 1860.
 

Queen Alexandra when Princess of Wales, by Franz Winterhalter, 1864.

Joséphine-Éléonore-Marie-Pauline de Galard de Brassac de Béarn, princesse de Broglie, by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1851-53.

Princess Margherita Maria Teresa Giovanna di Savoia, later Queen Consort of Italy, by Michele Gordigiani, 1870.

The Empress Eugénie, by Franz Winterhalter, 1857 - the "chapeau de paille" portrait.

Josefa Manzanedo e Intentas de Mitjans, later II marquesa de Manzanedo, by Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, 1872.

Countess Varvara Alexeievna Musina-Pushkina, by Franz Winterhalter, 1857.

Princess Margherita Maria Teresa Giovanna di Savoia, later Queen Consort of Italy, by Eleuterio Pagliano, 1870.

Amalia de Llano y Dotres, condesa de Vilches, by Federico de Madrazo y Kunz, 1853.