D. G. Levitsky wrote this portrait by order of Catherine II Lanskaya Alexander Dmitrievich, the favorite of Catherine II, lieutenant-general, adjutant-general, real chamberlain. The son of a poor Smolensk landowner Dmitry Artemyevich Lansky. In 1770 recorded in the Horse Guards. In 1772 he began serving as a soldier in the Izmailovsky regiment. In 1776, he was granted duty to the guard-guards with production to army lieutenants. In 1779, Empress Catherine II, during her stay in Tsarskoye Selo, drew attention to the handsome Horse Guards.
In October of the same year, Lanskoy was appointed an adjutant to G. A. Potemkin, and in November, Lanskoy was introduced to Empress Potemkin, granted to an adjutant, received 100 rubles to the cloakroom and moved to the palace. This is the only favorite of the elderly empress who did not interfere in politics, which made him, according to Bezborodko, “a real angel”, refused to influence, officials and orders, although Catherine forced him to take from her the title of count, vast lands, tens of thousands of peasants and the rank of adjutant. He was distinguished by such devotion to the empress, which she, by her own admission, “had never met in her life.”
While under the person of the Empress, Lanskoy, stupid by nature, engaged in self-education, he became interested in collecting. In 1779, Lanskoy was granted in actual chamberlain, in 1784 – in the Adjutant-General, Lieutenant of the Cavalry Guard Corps and promoted to lieutenant-general. The unexpected death of Lansky caused various rumors: they said that he was poisoned, died of diphtheria, fell from his horse. By the end of his life, Lanskoy owned a huge fortune, which contemporaries estimated at 6-7 million rubles. Before his death, he handed back to the treasury all his real estate, and the rest placed at the disposal of the empress, who divided the inheritance between his mother, brother and sisters.
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