3-094-143 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Portrait of Pyotr Kh. (Ludwig Adolf Peter) Wittgenstein (1768/69-1843), 1822. Louis Adolf Peter, 1st Prince of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Ludwigsburg-Berleburg, better known as Peter Wittgenstein, was a prince of the German dynasty of Sayn-Wittgenstein and field marshal in the Imperial Russian Army during the Napoleonic Wars. He was nicknamed the Saviour of Saint-Petersburg. 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.