Lot 5: AUGUSTIN RITT, 1765-1799

PORTRAIT MINIATURE OF EMPRESS ELIZAVETA ALEXEEVNA

image size: 9 by 7cm., 3½ by 2¾in.

signed in Latin l.l.

gouache and watercolour on ivory

PROVENANCE

Collection of Countess Festetics, Hungary, 1910s;
Collection of Leo R. Schidlof, Vienna

EXHIBITED

Brussels, L'Exposition de la Miniature à Bruxelles, March-June 1912, Cat.No. 1050a
Geneva, Chefs-d'oeuvre de la miniature et de la gouache, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, 1956, Cat.No.375
Vienna, Meisterwerke der europäischen Miniaturmalerei von 1750-1850, Albertina,1965, Cat.No. 318

LITERATURE

State Archive of the Russian Federation, File 20, document 20, sheet 3;
L'exposition de la Miniature à Bruxelles, G.Van Oest &C^ie, Brussels, 1913, illustrated plate XLVI;
L.R.Schidlof, The Miniature in Europe, Akademische Druck und Verklagsanstalt, Graz, 1964, volume 1, page 679;
G.N.Komelova, Avgustin Ritt: Russkii miniaturist 1765-1799, Zhizn' i tvorchestvo, St. Petersburg: Slavia, 2004, p.159, No. 98

NOTE

Augustin Ritt is considered one of Russia's best miniature portrait painters and the offered lot is perhaps the finest to have appeared at auction in recent years. Ritt initially studied in St. Petersburg at the Academy of Arts, before moving to Antwerp and Paris. Upon his return to Russia in 1792, he became miniaturist to the Imperial Court and was elected to the post of Academician.

The offered lot depicts Princess Louisa-Maria-Augusta of Baden, who later became Grand Duchess Elizaveta Alexeevna and married the future Tsar Alexander I. Her exceptional beauty and charming personality captivated not only the Tsar. The Grand Duchess became one of Ritt's favourite sitters and he painted eighteen portraits of her, three of which were completed within the first few months of her arrival in Russia.