Portrait of Dmitry Prokofievich Troschinsky

Dmitry Prokofievich Troschinsky was one of the most powerful Ukrainian-born statesmen of the Alexandrine era, having served as Minister of Justice and a confidant of Paul I before retiring to his Poltava estates. Borovikovsky painted this official portrait in 1819, late in both men's careers, when the painter's eyesight was beginning to fail but his compositional authority remained undiminished. Troschinsky's career bridged Catherine II's expansionist empire and the post-Napoleonic restoration, and his portrait carries the gravity of a man who witnessed five decades of Russian court intrigue. That the canvas ended up in the National Art Museum of Ukraine reflects the subject's deep ties to Little Russia — as Ukraine was then designated — and the cultural memory that attached his image to the region of his birth. Borovikovsky, himself born in Myrhorod in present-day Ukraine, may have felt particular kinship with this sitter, and the painting has a personal warmth unusual for formal ministerial portraits of the period.

Oil on canvas with the broad format typical of official ministerial portraiture. The face is modeled with accumulated glazes over a cool grey underpaint, creating depth in the eye sockets and beneath the chin. Decorations and insignia are handled with confident impasto highlights that read clearly from a distance.