Portrait Signed Darbes, 1781. Russo-baltic Period, Riga Address On The Reverse

Portrait signed Darbes, 1781. Russo-Baltic period, Riga address on the reverse

Oil on canvas, oval format, 61 × 46.5 cm

Signed on the left and dated 1781, this portrait is by Joseph Friedrich August Darbes (1747–1810), a German painter who, during the 1770s, worked extensively in the territories of the Russian Empire, particularly Saint Petersburg and Courland, within the prominent German-Baltic cultural environment. In 1785 he moved to Berlin, where he became professor of portrait painting and a member of the Academy of Arts.

The portrait belongs to the artist’s Russo-Baltic period. A meaningful comparison can be made with the portrait of Leonhard Euler (1778, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow): the dimensions (61.3 × 47.4 cm) are almost identical, reflecting Darbes’s use of standard oval formats for official portrait commissions.

Other works by Darbes are preserved in major institutions such as the Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), Russian Museum (Saint Petersburg), National Museum in Warsaw, Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, and the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen. Among his well-known sitters is Duchess Dorothea of Courland, a central figure in the cultural world of the Baltic region.

The young woman is depicted half-length, with a voluminous hairstyle typical of the 1770s–80s. Her dress is rendered in a soft green with pearly highlights, a tone that reflects the shift from the late Rococo toward a more luminous and restrained early Neoclassical palette. The slightly powdered appearance of the hair — fashionable at the time despite the sitter’s youth — creates a gentle contrast with the clear, finely modelled complexion. This delicacy of tone recalls the effect of 18th-century pastels, in harmony with Darbes’s known activity as a pastellist and miniature painter on parchment.

Condition: very good. The surface is virtually intact, with the fine craquelure typical of 18th-century works.

Reverse: the name “Petrik” appears alongside a reference to Riga (likely an address), suggesting that the painting passed through a Baltic collection at some point in its history.