Portrait of the Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna Romanova

The woman in this 1841 portrait was born Charlotte of Wurttemberg and became, by her marriage into the Romanovs, the Russian grand duchess Elena Pavlovna, sister-in-law of Tsar Nicholas I. In Saint Petersburg she was known less for court ritual than for what she supported, gathering musicians, scientists and painters around her, a patron people genuinely sought out. Felice Schiavoni came from a Venetian family of portraitists with a steady following among Russians, and a commission like this carried a Venice-trained hand into the world of the imperial capital. He gives her the careful, unshowy likeness such sitters expected, the dark dress and quiet ground holding the attention on her face. Schiavoni signed and dated it in 1841, when the grand duchess was in her early thirties.