Together with the much earlier posthumous portrait of Giambattista Piranesi (1779; Palazzo Braschi Museum, Rome) this portrait of Grand Duke Nicolaj Pavlovic Romanov at the age of six (1796-1855) is the new masterpiece of Pietro Labruzzi's portraiture and also an essential document for a better understanding of the late stylistic evolution (still not well-known due to lack of works) of a parable that started with the portraits of Piranesi and of the sculptor Vincenzo Pacetti (1779; Rome, National Academy of Saint Luca) and with the intense effigy of William Hadfield (circa 1780; Florence, Uffizi Gallery).

Commissioned, in all likelihood, by a Russian aristocrat related to the Imperial Court, while in Rome for the Grand Tour, this portrait is a historical document of great relevance, as no other portraits of Grand Duke Nicholas as a child are known to exist. The only exception being the great group portrait of the Tsar Paul I’s family, made by Gerhard von Kügelgen in 1800, in which the young boy appears in a tender embrace with his mother Maria Feodorovna (Saint Petersburg, Pavlovsk Palace Museum; picture 1).

This work reformulates the language of the great 18th-century portraiture, conceived by Pompeo Batoni and practiced by such painters as Anton von Maron and Stefano Tofanelli, for the international aristocracy visiting Rome. The portrait depicts, with intense psychological prominence, the full figure of a young Romanov, with a setting that is rich in accessories and emblematic references which convey strong allegorical values to the work, that mean that it could only belong to a person of royal rank.

Behind the Grand Duke stands the marble effigy of his older brother Alexander I, Tsar of Russia. The elements arranged on the sacrificial altar (on which the premonitory phrase “EX UTROQUE VICTOR” is written), held by Nicholas in his right hand, allude to the young prince’s upbringing and form a dense network of symbolic reference. As shown by the statue of Minerva, goddess of wisdom and war, dedication to liberal arts (poetry, literature and music alluded to by the bay leaf, the books and the syringe) and to the art of war (symbolised by the sword) will lead to the temple of glory and fame that stands out on the landscape and towards which Pegasus is heading. The globe, a sort of warning for the young prince, refers, on one hand, to the vastness of the Tsars’ domains, and, on the other hand, to the numerous and glorious conquers that await him.

The painting combines realistic investigation with an allegorical structure that refers to the Sixteenth century, through a stylistic crasis and a permutation of reference that is also experimented by Labruzzi in his many holy paintings. Proof of this attitude can be found in the paintings made by Labruzzi in the nineties for the Dome of Spoleto, in the framework of the ambitious decorative intervention promoted by Pius VI and granted to a group of artists with a roman training, such as Domenico Corvi, Cristoforo Unterperger, Bernardino Nocchi and Antonio Cavallucci.