Salvatore Tonci

Salvatore Tonci arrived in St. Petersburg in 1797 in the entourage of Stanislaw August Poniatowski, the deposed King of Poland. He spent seven years in St. Petersburg, painting a series of portraits including Emperor Paul I, his wife Alexandra, the poet Gavrila Derzhavin and other society figures in early Romantic style. In 1804, he eloped with Princess Natalia Gagarina, 22 years his junior, moving first to Moscow, then to Vladimir, then back to Moscow, where he founded the Architectural School of the Kremlin Department for Construction in 1815. He taught drawing there until 1842, two years before his death.

Works: Portrait of Emperor Paul I (Grand Palace, Peterhof), Portrait of Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna (State Russian Museum), Portrait of an unknown woman (Hermitage Museum), Portrait of Nikolay Demidov (State Russian Museum)

Connected with: Alessandro Molinari