Porträt des Murtaza-Kuli-Khan

Murtaza-Kuli Khan was a Persian prince who had sought refuge at the Russian imperial court after political upheavals in Persia, and Borovikovsky's 1796 portrait of him is a striking document of the ethnographic diversity of the Catherinian court. The painter adapted his approach to the particular requirements of depicting a non-European subject, incorporating elements of Persian dress and physiognomy with the same careful attention he brought to Russian aristocratic portraiture. The Russian Museum holds the painting as evidence of the court's cosmopolitan reach and of Borovikovsky's flexible versatility as a portraitist.

The canvas required Borovikovsky to adapt his portrait conventions to a subject whose dress, colouring, and physiognomy differed significantly from his usual clientele. The Persian costume and turban are rendered with careful attention to their specific forms and textures. The face is modelled with the same careful precision as in his Russian portraits, demonstrating the transferability of his technique across different cultural subjects.