Charlotte (Alexandra Fedorovna), Empress of Russia, with her Eldest Children, Alexander and Maria
Artist: George Dawe (English, 1781-1829)
Collection: Royal Collection Trust, London, United Kingdom
Having begun life as a mezzotint engraver, George Dawe was much employed as a painter by Prince Leopold both during his marriage (1816-7) and after; he worked also for the Duke and Duchess of Kent. Like Lawrence he was at Aix-la-Chapelle to paint the crowned heads assembled there for the Congress in 1818. He spent the years 1818-28 working for the Emperor Alexander I in St Petersburg, creating 336 portraits of those responsible for the defeat of Napoleon, housed in a specially-created gallery in the Winter Palace (the equivalent of the Waterloo Chamber). He died soon after his return to England in 1829.
Dawe here cleverly recycles a design from one of his earliest royal portraits, that of Princess Charlotte, adding two children in place of a portfolio and shawl. The result is a magnificent Neo-Classical reworking of a formula which goes back to Van Dyck. The sitter was daughter of the reactionary Frederick William III, King of Prussia (1770-1840), wife of the reactionary Emperor Nicholas I (1796-1855), and mother of the reforming Emperor Alexander II (1818-1881), who clambers over the knees. At this date however she is merely the sister-in-law of the Emperor Alexander I (1777-1825).
