The Academy acquired this portrait no later than the middle of the year 1773. Subsequently, it left the academic collection. It was exhibited within the Tauride Exhibition of 1905 as a portrait of Anna Petrovna (?) painted by Tannauer (?). When part of the Oliv family collection the portrait was counted as an unknown work by Ivan Nikitin. The theory that the person depicted is actually Praskovia Ivanovna was suggested in the Guideline Catalogue of the Russian Museum published in 1948. Thereafter the attribution has never been challenged.

Praskovia Ioannovna (September 24, 1694 – October 8, 1731)
Tsarevna, younger daughter of Tsar Ioann V Alexeyevich, and the sister of Catherine Ioannovna and Anna Ioannovna. After her mother’s death in 1723, she married General in Chief Ivan Dmitriev-Mamonov (December 10, 1680–May 24, 1730) with the consent of Peter the Great (according to other sources – secretly). In October, 1724 they had a son who died around 1730.

Nikitin Ivan

Nikitin, Ivan Nikitich
1680s, Moscow (?) - After 1741
Painter, portraitist. Son of a Moscow priest, brother of Roman Nikitin. Possibly educated at the Armoury School of Printing in Moscow. Lived in St Petersburg (from 1711). Studied under Tommaso Redi in Florence as a fellow of Peter the Great (1716-19). Returned to Russia (1720). Court portraitist (from 1721). Painted life portraits of Peter the Great on Kronstadt (1715-21). Married and divorced Maria Fyodorovna Mamens, lady of the bedchamber to Empress Catherine I (1727). Arrested in St Petersburg in connection with the libelling of Archbishop Feofan Prokopovich (1732). Spent five years in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Exiled to Siberia (1737). Released by the Privy Council (1742). Died on the way from Siberia to Moscow.