Description of the picture:
Portrait of Empress Maria Fyodorovna in pearl dress – Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy. 1880s Canvas, oil. 55×47
Russian painter and draftsman Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy (1837-1887) was versatilely gifted. He worked as a master of genre, historical and portraiture, and was a prominent art critic. Studying at the Imperial Academy of Arts, Kramskoy led the “Revolt of fourteen” artists who refused to write a graduation work on the theme of Norse mythology and asked to choose a theme on their own. The talent of Kramskoy, a portrait painter, was also highly appreciated by royal monks. In the 1880s he was ordered Portrait of Empress Maria Feodorovna, spouses of Alexander III.
A magnificent ceremonial portrait shows a still quite young, fragile empress in a pearl dress. Amazing jewels do not overshadow the finely-written willful face of the ruler, who also suffered years of family happiness and terrible upheavals associated with the death of children and grandchildren in revolutionary times."
