Catalogues listing paintings from the Collection of the Russian Museum previously counted the portrait as a work of an unknown artist; however, already in the 1980s credible researchers stated that there was no doubt that the portrait was created by Ivan Nikitin, and the person depicted is the painter Andrei Matveyev. Nikitin’s authorship was confirmed by the Attribution Council of the Russian Museum in 2015. The portrait was painted before August 8, 1732, the day when Nikitin was arrested and committed to the Peter and Paul Fortress.

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.