Touches to the iconography of Prince Dmitry A. Golitsyn: the search for portraits

Sechin Aleksandr Georgievich ORCID: 0000-0002-2690-3123 PhD in Art History Associate Professor, Department of Art Studies and Pedagogy of Art, the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia 191186, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Moika River embankment, 48 sechin_a@mail.ru

Abdullina Darina Aleksandrovna ORCID: 0000-0002-4736-7841 Specialist in museum and educational activities, State Russian Museum 191186, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Engineering str., 4 darina-abdullina@rambler.ru

D. A. Golitsyn in the space of European and Russian culture of the XVIII century.

Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn (1734-1803) — a statesman of the time of Catherine II, who was successful not only in the field of diplomacy, but also very successful in the sciences and in the knowledge of the world of arts. He was an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Arts in Russia, as well as many institutions of this kind in European countries. Moreover, a good half of the acquisitions of the Catherine Hermitage, if not more, are his merit. Only the Empress's purchases of Pierre's collections Croz and Johann Karl Philippa von Kobenzl, to which the prince contributed in every possible way, can be considered the most important milestone in the history of the formation of the future museum. D. A. Golitsyn is an example of how representatives of the Russian nobility from collecting within the framework of the idea of the Universe came to the need to form a specialized art collection, where a work of fine art acquires self—worth ^{[1; 2]}. Moreover, the prince, as A. G. Sechin notes, "had to compose not only the first history of art in Russian, but also the corresponding terminological dictionary" ^{[3, p. 686]}, which, due to various circumstances, were never published in a single complex. The obvious importance for national culture and the scale of the personality determines the need to draw up a picture of D. A. Golitsyn's life. Meanwhile, there is still very little information in Russian science about him as a specific individual, even little information has been collected about his appearance. And this is against the background of the declining interest in the events and phenomenon of the "century madly and wisely", when there were drastic changes in the life of the country, in its spiritual sphere; when, as G. V. notes. Vdovin, a part of Russian society was experiencing the experience of self-knowledge, including expressed in the formation and development of the art of portraiture, and in this process the prince played the most active role.

In this light, the large-scale exhibition "Salons" is noteworthy Diderot. Exhibitions of contemporary Art in Paris of the XVIII century", organized in 2023 by the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in cooperation with the State Hermitage Museum with the support of the Commission on Culture of Education of the Scientific Council of the Russian Academy of Sciences "History of World Culture". Among the works created by Western European masters of the XVIII century, such as F. Boucher, K. Wang Loo, J.-B. Grez, J. L. David, N. Lancre, K. J. Vernet, J. O. Fragonard, J. B. S. Chardin, E. M. Falcone, etc., the bust of D. A. Golitsyn, created by Marie-Anne Collot (1766, collection of S. A. Podstanitsky, ill. 1 (left) and 5). Naturally, it turned out to be there for a reason, since the center of the exposition was the recreated image of D. Diderot's office, through the prism of the "Salons" of which, according to the expositioners, the panorama of the artistic world of the Enlightenment was revealed. It is known that the French philosopher had friendly relations with the Russian prince. Moreover, they were united by a passion for collecting, as well as engaging in literary creativity and science.

Fig. 1. Marie-Anne Collot. Portraits of Prince D. A. Golitsyn (terracotta, height 52.5 cm) from the collection of Sergei and Tatiana Podstanitsky (Moscow) and Denis Diderot (marble, height 57 cm) from the collection of the State. The Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg) at the exhibition "Salons" by Diderot. Exhibitions of contemporary art in Paris of the XVIII century" at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. June 6 – October 1, 2023 Photo by A. G. Sechin.

Portrait images of D. A. Golitsyn as a subject of interest to researchers

At the same time, if the lifetime portrait images of D. Diderot are known and quite numerous, then few images of D. A. Golitsyn have survived to this day. Most of them have become public knowledge only since the early 2000s. Thanks to a variety of scientists and publicists. Perhaps in the future the number of such images will increase, since this material is portraits that mostly remained in private collections, and even far from Russia, passed from hand to hand, often without any attribution. And there are probably quite a lot of such unnamed "silent" images. Information about even the now famous portraits of the prince is extremely scarce and scattered according to various sources, including foreign ones. This suggests the need for systematization and analysis of portrait images, which can be considered as a basis for further searches for such works and as a preparatory stage for a possible biography of D. A. Golitsyn in the future. In light of this, the purpose of this publication is to identify the iconography of the portrait images of the prince, to determine the artistic, stylistic and compositional features of the portraits. In addition, it is important to mark at least dotted lines, but where possible, the connection of images with turning periods in the life of the model itself, the historical context, which will help confirm or even refute the existing attribution.

Portrait images of D. A. Golitsyn, known until the 2000s.

Most of the works related to the illumination of one or another facet of the prince's personality, having general information about his fate and achievements, and compiled before the beginning of the XXI century, did not have portraits of the prince as illustrations. An exception should be considered the work of G. K. Tsverava, who, covering the activities of D. A. Golitsyn, in the field of natural sciences, noted that at that time portrait images, except for the silhouette frontispiece reproduced on the cover of his 1985 book, were not known ^[4]. This image (fig. 2) was made by the artist I. V. Golitsyn, a master in the field of engraving. According to G. S. Golitsyn, it was a copy of a very small silhouette, which served as an illustration of the German-language edition of the prince's works. The latter was allegedly discovered by G. K. Tsverava in the scientific library of the S. I. Vavilov Institute of the History of Natural Sciences and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. G. S. Golitsyn also correlates this image with the end of the XVIII century, when D. A. Golitsyn became president of the "Ducal Society of General Mineralogy in Jena". By the way, he transferred his mineralogical collection to this society, being unable to maintain it due to age and financial difficulties.

Fig. 2. The cover of the book by G. K. Tsverava "Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn, 1734-1803" (Leningrad, 1985) with a silhouette image of the prince created by I. V. Golitsyn.

G. S. Golitsyn provides as an illustration a photograph of the image (fig. 3), from his point of view, which served as a model for the silhouette of 1985, signing it as follows: "The silhouette of Prince Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn (1743-1803), the only image of him known before 2000. Made by I. V. Golitsyn, a copy of the silhouette measuring 1x2 cm" ^{[5, p. 95]}. It seems strange that G. S. Golitsyn calls the photo of the engraving with the portrait of the prince "silhouette" given as an example. It is obvious that the author did not create a planar monochrome profile of the model at all, but her graphic portrait on a printed form. The image is voluminous and very realistic, the features of the depicted person are transmitted without any stylization. The model is rotated in three quarters, not in profile. The artist focuses on the person depicted, highlighting him as the lightest spot in the composition. He very clearly shows wrinkles on his face, emphasizes a high forehead and a long nose.

	Fig. 3. The alleged portrait of D. A. Golitsyn. An illustration with a caption to the article by G. S. Golitsyn in the journal "Researcher" (2010), № 1-2(5-6). P. 95.	Fig. 4. Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin. Source: Sarah M. Brownson. Life of Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, prince and priest (New York, 1873). P. 8.

This work is accompanied by a signature in which the model is designated as "Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin". A similar image, as the only illustration, accompanies a much earlier English-language text of 1873 by Sarah M. Brownson (fig. 4). In it, in detail, following Henry Lemke (1861) ^[6] tells about the life of the son of Prince D. D. Golitsyn, who is referred to as "Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin", that is, "Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin". It is likely that "Augustine" is the second name that Dmitry Dmitrievich chose at confirmation, becoming a Catholic, and then a priest. Therefore, this image should be considered as a portrait of D. A. Golitsyn's son, and not of himself, as evidenced by the clothes of the depicted one, which fully corresponds to how priests and monks dressed, namely in a tunic made of black woolen fabric with a large shoulder cape. If we follow the version of G. S. Golitsyn, then the silhouette portrait of the prince, created by a Soviet graphic artist, basically had an image not of D. A. Golitsyn, but of his offspring. Although, most likely, the similarity between them was undeniable, and here it is worth talking about the fact of artistic interpretation. I. V. Golitsyn, based on this image, "translated" the characteristic features into the most expressive and acceptable art form for a printed publication. The book by G. K. Tsverava was an edition of the Scientific and Biographical Series of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which is characterized by a special artistic solution associated with the placement of a predominantly monochrome graphic portrait of the hero of scientific biography inside a two-color frame (fig. 2). Under it is placed the name of the author of the book and the person to whom it is dedicated. These features and I. V. Golitsyn's penchant for black-and-white engraving led to a similar interpretation of the image. In addition, the fashion for monochrome portrait images in profile with the light hand of E. de The silhouette reached its peak during the years of the prince's life and later, which could not be ignored by the compiler of the text and the artist.

The work shows a close study of nature, a generalization of form, the intensity of rhythmic ratios and a reasonable measure of white and black, characteristic of I. V. Golitsyn. An important role was played here by the artist's interest in the history of his family, as well as knowledge of the peculiarities of the appearance of its representatives, including on the basis of the existing family portrait gallery, in particular in the "Red House" in Moscow. Of course, the graphic artist at that time was not aware of the terracotta bust of D. A. Golitsyn discovered much later (fig. 1, left), but the creative intuition of the master suggested to him the most suitable way to convey the image — a silhouette chest image in profile with an emphasis on the nose as a family trait and an expressive line of the head and hairstyle, tucked into a tail with a ribbon. The author tries to "rejuvenate" the model, giving it a shape that, due to the advanced age of D. D. Golitsyn, is not in the sample engraving.

Identification of terracotta busts by Marie-Anne Collot as a portrait of D. A. Golitsyn

In 2014, an article by N. A. was published. Mokhova, which was accompanied by an illustration depicting a sculptural bust of D. A. Golitsyn, made by Marie-Anne Collot (figs. 1 and 5). The researcher noted that the photograph of this work was provided to her by Academician G. S. Golitsyn, Director of the Department of Physics at the Institute of Atmosphere of the Russian Academy of Sciences ^{[7, p. 136]}, but did not indicate the source of its origin, as well as the provenance of the work itself. A similar work as an element of an illustrative series was used in 2017 by K. Yu. Lappo-Danilevsky in an article devoted to the reception of I. I. Winkelman's ideas in the space of Russian culture. He used the photograph of the sculpture only as an illustration, so in its description he limited himself to specifying the name of the author, the model itself, as well as the material and date of creation: "Marie-Anne Collot, portrait bust of Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn, terracotta, 1766" ^{[8, p. 169]}.

Fig. 5. Marie-Anne Collot. Terracotta portrait of Prince D. A. Golitsyn from the collection of Sergei and Tatiana Podstanitsky (Moscow) at the exhibition "Salons" by Diderot. Exhibitions of contemporary art in Paris of the XVIII century" at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. June 6 – October 1, 2023 Photo by A. G. Sechin.

Between these two publications, a short article by G. S. Golitsyn was published in 2012. In it, the author briefly tells about the history of the search for portraits of the prince, for the first time trying to make up his iconography in general terms. The researcher mentions four images known to him, namely: a silhouette portrait on the cover of the book by G. K. Tsverava (fig. 2), "silhouette", which became the model for the first (fig. 3 and 4), as well as a terracotta bust by Marie-Anne Collot (fig. 1 and 5) and a drawing of her Pierre's wife Etienne Falcone (fig. 6). However, the author focuses more on the sculptural image. The fact is that at that time in scientific circles it was only still being approved as an image of D. A. Golitsyn. G. S. Golitsyn indicates his participation in this process, as well as A.M. Schenker, professor of Slavic linguistics at Yale University, as well as I. V. Golitsyn. The sculptural portrait, as the researcher writes, was discovered by Marie-Louise Becker, a fan of the work of Marie-Anne Collot. A photo of this work was published by her in 2004 ^[9]. As noted by G. S. Golitsyn, the identification was facilitated by a drawing with the image of the prince, created by Pierre By Etienne Falcone (fig. 6). The article presents black-and-white photographs of the bust and the drawing. The researcher also writes that "Kollo made a bust of Dmitry Alekseevich, even made several copies of it. She took one to St. Petersburg in 1766, as Dmitry Alekseevich informs N. I. To Panin in a letter dated August 31 of the same year, the other was at Diderot's. However, their fate is unknown. Maybe the one that was offered to the Louvre once belonged to Diderot, and the St. Petersburg copy may still be found in some storerooms" ^{[5, p. 96]}. Regarding the characteristics of this image, which G. S. Golitsyn had not seen in the original at that time, the author writes sparingly: "A terracotta bust of D. A. Golitsyn in profile and in three quarters of the work" ^{[5, p. 96]}. He also mentions a family trait of the family, namely the long noses of the Golitsyns.

Fig. 6. Pierre Etienne Falcone. Portrait of Prince D. A. Golitsyn. Drawing. Private collection, The Hague. Source: Irina Marisina. Essays on the history of international relations of the Imperial Academy of Arts in the second half of the XVIII — first third of the XIX century (Moscow, 2021). p. 32.

Marie-Louise Back in 1998, Becker published a photo of this work in an article dedicated to Marie-Anne Collot, attributing it as a "portrait of an unknown man." The author also writes there that "the identification of this bust as a portrait of Grimm is incorrect" ^{[10, p. 76]}. This version was expressed by D. David Weil in the middle of the XX century. A patron and collector who possessed a similar sculptural image believed that it represented a portrait of Friedrich Melchior Grimm, with whom Marie-Anne Collot was very closely associated. This version was also due to the fact that the French publicist and educator had no less expressive nose decorated with a hump than the representatives of the Golitsyn house. However, Marie-Louise Becker points out the absence of any mention by F. M. Grimm in letters about his portraits by Marie-Anne Collot. At the same time, he writes about busts of the actor Preville, D. Diderot and D. A. Golitsyn, two of which are dated 1766. Most likely, according to the researcher, one of them is a sculptural portrait of a Russian prince, "but his practically non—existent iconography does not yet allow identifying him" ^{[10, p. 76]}. At that time, this work was in an unknown place, and its photograph was discovered by the compiler of the article from Parisian antiquaries. G. S. Golitsyn in an article in 2010 writes that "in the archives of the Louvre, he [A.M. Schenker] came across a picture from two angles of a sculptural bust of a young handsome man with a large nose of an extremely beautiful shape. The bust bore the inscription “Marie Collot, 1766”, but it was not indicated whose portrait it was. In the 20s of the XX century, the bust was offered to the Louvre. The museum refused to buy it, because they already had enough sculptures by Collot, and besides, it was unknown from whom this portrait was made. In May 1975, the bust was sold at auction in Paris..." ^{[5, p. 96]}.

Another copy, most likely, was part of the collection of D. David until 2008 Vail, and then it was sold to a private collection in Moscow. The photo of this copy of the terracotta bust was first published in the publication "Princes Golitsyn. 600 years of service to Moscow and the Fatherland: biobibliogr. decree." in 2010. It also notes the following: "In his message at the XVII Golitsyn Readings (2010), G. S. Golitsyn (PG No. 971) continued the theme of the iconography of Prince D. A. Golitsyn (No. 1570, see Materials of the XII Golitsyn Readings, 2005). He announced the new acquisition of a bust of Prince D. A. Golitsyn in the private Moscow collection of Sergei and Tatiana Podstanitsky Marie Collot (1748-1821). In this edition, the image is published for the first time" ^{[11, p. 136]}. Thanks to the support of S. A. Podstanitsky, this work is actively exhibited in Russia, and in 2023 it was presented at the exhibition at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts "Salons" Diderot. Exhibitions of contemporary art in Paris of the XVIII century" (fig. 1 and 5).

Judging by the available photographic materials from different angles, terracotta busts from the collection of S. A. Podstanitsky and Marie-Louise Becker are identical. In both cases, the model is depicted shoulder-high. The outline in profile is extremely expressive, resembling the famous silhouette image (fig. 2). The hair is combed back, curled on the sides, and gathered in a ponytail from behind. The artist is attentive to details, reliably and even naturalistically conveys the facial features of the person being portrayed, without smoothing or idealizing them. The sculptor also uses the light half-smile characteristic of her portraits, which gives the image a lightness. This work is similar in the emotional mood of the model, composition and expressive means to the bust of D. Diderot (fig. 1, right). However, the philosopher's head is not set straight, but slightly tilted. On his shoulders is not a doublet, but a shirt made of fine cloth with ruffles, between which a scarf is casually tied. The portrait of the diplomat from Russia came out a little more official than his friend, the thinker, which, apparently, can be explained by the difference in the social status of the models.

Drawing with profile portrait of D. A. Golitsyn by Pierre Etienne Falcone: Dating problems

Another portrait of the prince, made by Marie-Anne Collot's husband Pierre By Etienne Falcone, currently in a private collection in The Hague (fig. 6). This image as an illustration accompanies an article by G. S. Golitsyn and a book by I. M. Marisina published much later ^[12]. However, the first researcher dates it to the 1770s, and the second to the period between 1765 and 1766. According to the version of I. M. Marisina, the drawing was created, like his sculptural bust, during the prince's stay in Paris. This is evidenced by the costume and hairstyle of the model, reminiscent of those seen in the work of Falcone's wife. At the same time, the shadow of a more mature age is noticeable in the image, since, for example, the skin here does not seem as smooth and elastic as in the work of Marie-Anne Collot. The same applies to the straightening of the model, which indicates a certain slouch. Such signs, of course, are subjective and largely related to the fact that the images were created by means of different types of fine art, but still they must be noted. The artist tightly covers the background with shading, and the figure is mainly built with lines that thicken in the area of the hairstyle. The graphic portrait of the prince has not been completed, as many details remained in the form of easily sketched lines, not shaded. The model sits in profile and is shown waist-high. The image is limited by the shape of the tondo. The reference to the profile image is probably due to the fact that Pierre Etienne Falcone found this silhouette to be as expressive as possible and fully revealing the features of the model's appearance. In addition, profile portraits were in fashion at that time, which were often created as illustrations for printed publications. In the light of the prince's active publication activity, such a task could well have been set for the author.

The correspondence of Academician Jacob (Yakov) can clarify the dating of the drawing. Yakovlevich) von Stelin, a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, with his son P. Ya. Shtelin, who served in those years in The Hague under the leadership of the Prince. As the researchers of these letters G. I. Smagin and V. A. Somov indicate, the former personally knew D. A. Golitsyn and wrote to his son that the prince should be considered "the most honest man" ^{[13, p. 15]}. P. Ya. Stehlin echoes his father, noting his boss's gentle, affectionate, benevolent disposition, noble way of thinking and peace of mind ^{[13, p. 15]}. At the same time, the letters indicate that the Empress "has "prejudices" against Golitsyn" ^{[13, p. 16]}. However, the reasons for this attitude are not specified, but most likely they influenced the subsequent resignation of Prince G. I. Smagin and V. A. Somov, based on the contents of the letters, indicate that in the house of D. A. Golitsyn P. Ya. Stehlin had the opportunity to see the sculptor Etienne-Maurice Falcone and Marie-Anne Collot. The first visited The Hague on his way from Russia in 1778, and in July 1779 he was joined by a former student, and now the wife of his son ^{[14, p. 96]}. It is likely that it was during communication with the Falcone family in The Hague by Pierre's hand Etienne Falcone could have made a drawing with a profile image of the prince.

A picturesque portrait from the collection of the princes of Salm-Salm: D. A. Golitsyn or Philip Kuapel?

Figure 7. Unknown artist. Portrait of D. A. Golitsyn (?). The Assembly of the Princes of Salm-Salm, Germany. Illustration from the book: Natalia Zazulina. The Grand Duke's Mission: Pavel Petrovich's Journey in 1781-1782 (Moscow, 2015). p. 336.	Figure 8. Charles-Antoine Quapelle. Portrait of Philippe Kuapel. 1732. Louvre, Paris. Source: https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010063632

N. N. Zazulina, in an excursion into the history of the XVIII century, based on the material she collected in the archives of the Vatican, Austria, Italy, Germany and Switzerland ^{[15, p. 336]}, accompanies a short story about the Parisian life of D. A. Golitsin and his connections with scientific and philosophical circles of the capital of France with a picturesque portrait of a young man who She identifies it as an image of the prince by an unknown master (fig. 7). Meanwhile, a similar portrait created by Charles Antoine is kept in the Louvre Kuapel when the future Russian diplomat was no more than two years old. The painter's brother Philippe Quapel served as a model for him (fig. 8). Very similar to this work both in composition and in terms of plastics, as well as the "eloquent" position of the model's hands, in which A. G. Sechin sees a rhetorical connection with ancient samples, a self-portrait of Charles-Antoine Quapel himself in 1734. ^{[16, p. 665]}. Perhaps a copy of this work got into the collection of the princes of Salm-Salm, which later underwent incorrect attribution. Of course, one should not exclude the possibility of an incredible resemblance between D. A. Golitsyn and Philip Kuapel, but the costume and hairstyle, the setting of the figure are still more typical for rocaille portraits of the beginning of the XVIII century, and not for the second half of the same century.

Conclusions

Thus, it is possible to build an iconographic gallery of portraits in which researchers see the image of D. A. Golitsyn. First there was an engraving in the German-language edition, then a silhouette image created already in Soviet times based on the first one. However, as the art criticism analysis has shown, most likely, this is a portrait of D. D. Golitsyn and later his stylized interpretation as a portrait of his father. Since the 2000s, based on these images and portraits of the prince's relatives, in particular, their characteristic features, for example, the same expressive profile, scientists, collectors, publicists began to identify a number of similar images. So, thanks to the researcher of creativity Marie-Anne Collot Marie-Louise Becker's sculptural bust, which for a long time was considered a portrait of F. M. Grimm, was attributed as a portrait of D. A. Golitsyn. Currently, two versions of this work are known, one of which is kept in Moscow in the collection of S. A. Podstanitsky, and the second is in the possession of Marie-Louise Becker. An important role in the gallery of portrait images of the prince is played by a drawing by Pierre Etienne Falcone, the exact dating of which is still an open question. At the same time, the picturesque image from the collection of the princes of Salm-Salm, which is given in the book by N. N. Zazulina, as it turned out, is a portrait of a completely different person. An amazing fact in the iconography of the prince should be considered that often the main reference point for researchers is an expressive nose, which is supposed to have been inherited by D. A. Golitsyn and invariably deserved the closest attention of the artists who painted portraits of his relatives. It is possible that the analysis proposed in this article will further allow us to find other portraits of this, undoubtedly, extremely interesting person, diplomat, scientist and great connoisseur of the arts, who deserves not only to study his iconography, but also to compile a full-fledged biography.