Romantic portraiture found its fullest expression in the art of Orest Kiprensky, who painted several self-portraits, including a very painterly one, with brushes stuck behind his ear. Kiprensky’s own life bore the hallmarks of Romanticism. The illegitimate son of an aristocratic army officer, he studied painting at the Academy (where he was enrolled at the age of six) and rapidly became a successful portrait painter. Then in 1805, he was awarded a travelling scholarship, and as soon as the Napoleonic Wars ended he departed for Rome. There he led a fairly bohemian life, and found himself the subject of scandal when an Italian model and a manservant died as a result of a fire at his house. In 1828, after four years back home in Russia, he returned to Italy, married the model’s daughter (whom he had entrusted to a convent school) and spent the next eight years roaming Italy with her, until his death from tuberculosis in 1836.

      At the Academy, Kiprensky had learned to paint so flawlessly that his brush strokes are practically invisible and his pictures have an ivory-smooth finish. They also display an exceptional ability to convey character and to achieve subtle effects of colour and light. In them it is possible to see something of the spirit of the great Russian poets and novelists of the nineteenth century. Among his best-known works are the portrait of Pushkin that he painted in 1827 and the one of Colonel Yevgraf Davydov, an aristocratically nonchalant cavalry officer (and poet), who seems to have stepped straight out of the pages of War and Peace. When in Paris in 1822, Kiprensky was invited to exhibit at the Salon. He also had the distinction of being asked to provide the Uffizi Gallery with a self-portrait for their permanent collection.

      The career of Vassily Tropinin was very different from Kiprensky’s. Born a serf, he was given to Count Morkov as part of his wife’s dowry and spent the first part of his life on the Count’s estate in the Ukraine. When Morkov discovered that Tropinin possessed artistic ability, he used him to make copies of famous works of art and also to paint portraits of his family. In 1799 Morkov sent Tropinin to Saint Petersburg to train as a pastry-cook. Tropinin seized the opportunity to attend classes at the Academy, at first secretly and then with Morkov’s approval. But in 1804, Morkov recalled him to the Ukraine to continue working on his estate, both as a servant and as an artist. Eventually, in 1823 – when he was nearly forty-eight – Morkov granted Tropinin his freedom.

      The following year Tropinin received the title of academician and moved to Moscow, where he painted portraits of celebrities (including Pushkin and Karamzin) and numerous foreign visitors. In the 1820s he began painting “genre portraits” depicting women at work, with titles such as Lacemaker, Spinner and Embroidress, which are remarkable for their realism and directness. Masterpieces from the later part of his life include his refreshingly unaffected portrait of the writer Varvara Lizogub, and one of his most memorable works is the very natural portrait of his own son painted in 1818.

      Like Tropinin, Alexeï Venetsianov was in his true element when painting ordinary people. The quiet realism of his work represented an important step in the development of Russian painting and had a clearly discernible influence for several decades. Until the age of thirty-nine, Venetsianov worked as a draughtsman and land surveyor in the civil service. After taking up residence in Saint Petersburg in 1802, he studied with Borovikovsky and ran a newspaper advertisement offering his services as a portrait painter. In 1811 he received a distinction from the Academy for his self-portrait,