Porträt des Alexander Andreyevich Bezborodko (1747–1799)

Alexander Andreyevich Bezborodko (1747–1799) was the most powerful Russian statesman of Catherine II's last decade, serving as her principal secretary and directing much of Russia's foreign policy through the partition treaties, the Ottoman wars, and the French Revolutionary crisis. Levitzky's undated portrait of him, now at the Pavlovsk Museum-Preserve, likely dates to the late 1780s or early 1790s, when Bezborodko was at the height of his influence. The Pavlovsk location connects the canvas to the household of Grand Duke Paul, Bezborodko's eventual master after Catherine's death, suggesting the portrait was either gifted or placed there as part of the political transition from Catherinian to Pavline court culture. Bezborodko's Ukrainian origins — like Levitzky's — may have added a particular warmth to what might otherwise have been a routine official commission.

Oil on canvas in the official portrait format demanded by Bezborodko's rank. Levitzky renders the chancellor's decorations with full technical authority — each order differentiated by its specific form, ribbon color, and metallic character. The face, beneath the formal apparatus, carries the weight of a man who understood power at its most intimate level.