2-588-008 - © Fine Art Images/Heritage Images

'Portrait of the Poet Ivan A Krylov', 1832. Krylov (1769-1844) is Russia's best known writer of fables. His earlier works were based on the fables of Aesop and Jean de la Fontaine, but later writings were original, often satirising what Krylov saw as the stifling and incompetent bureaucracy of his time. Found in the collection of the A Pushkin Memorial Museum, St Petersburg.