The artist is Vishnyakov
Anna Leopoldovna (Ugre. Elena Ekaterina Christina; 1718-1746)-Princess Braunschweig-Luneburg. The niece of Empress Anna Ioannovna and her daughter Sisters of Ekaterina Ioannovna and Duke Karl Leopold Meklenburgsky. Since 1739 – Anna Leopoldovna, the wife of Prince Anton Ulrich Braunschweig, in 1740-1741 a regent with a young son – Emperor John Antonovich (Ivan VI), granddaughter of Ivan VI. He died in exile in Kholmogory of the Arkhangelsk province. He was buried in the Annunciation Church of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg.
The portrait is probably written during the beginning of the regency and death of Anna Leopoldovna. State affairs greatly weighed her careless and phlegmatic nature and the weak regency quickly ended with a coming to the throne of November 25, 1741, the daughters of Peter the Great – Elizabeth. A little information about Anna Leopoldovna has been preserved, among them the memoirs of Field Marshal Minikh, the proxy of the former regent,, one of the few who remained devoted to the ruler and her young son during the Elizabethan Palace Revolution. He left a curious observation about her: “She was naturally sloppy, tied her head with a white scarf, and the goals for the lunch, did not wear fijs and appeared publicly in this form”.
On the portrait and. Vishnyakova ruler Anna Leopoldovna Majoro and calmly sits in a chair. Like all other works of the artist, the portrait is interesting for its contrasts. For example, an orange dress, a transparent scarf on his shoulders and a white bandage on his head are written by the artist with free, bold and long strokes that convey the texture of the fabric. A vibrant contrast to a planar figure is a voluminous person. This portrait is difficult to attribute to the official type of image, it is known that in the short period of the reign of Anna Leopoldovna the artist wrote several of her portraits.
On the radiograph of the picture conducted by the Department of Technological Research of the timing, some changes made by Vishnyakov after the reign of Elizabeth are traced. So with his left hand, Anna Leopoldovna hugs a child with an expressive large -eyed face, that very unfortunate John Antonovich, who then spent his whole life in imprisonment and died under unknown circumstances in the fortress of Shlisselburg in 1764.
