3-093-752 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Portrait of Pyotr K. Suchtelen (1751-1836) (1st), 1820. Dutch-born diplomat and general in the Russian army who became best known in Finland as the commander of the siege of Sveaborg during the Russo-Swedish War (1808-1809), and in Sweden as Russian minister to Stockholm. In 1812 Suchtelen was the plenipotentiary for Russian Emperor Alexander I in Örebro where he negotiated and signed the Treaty of Örebro which brought to an end the Anglo-Russian War (1807-1812). English portraitist George Dawe (1781-1829) was commissioned by Alexander I to paint 329 portraits of senior Russian military staff who had successfully fought Napoleon during his invasion of Russia, for the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace. Dawe worked in Saint Petersburg from 1822 to 1828, with his assistants, Alexander Polyakov and Wilhelm August Golicke, and was officially appointed First Portrait Painter of the Imperial Court.