The portrait belongs to a series of portraits of Smolyanok – pupils of the Smolny Institute of noble maidens, written by the artist on the order of Empress Catherine II. Ekaterina Ivanovna Nelidova – the daughter of Lieutenant Ivan Dmitrievich Nelidova. Pupil of the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens. At the end of the institute, she was awarded a second-rate gold medal and Catherine II’s cipher. It was noticed by Catherine II. Since 1776 – the maid of honor of Grand Duchess Natalia Alekseevna. After her death in 1777 – the maid of honor to Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna, the future wife of Emperor Paul I. The chamber of maid of honor and the cavalier lady of the Order of Sts. Catherine the Small Cross. Favorite Paul I.
She spent the last years of her life at the Smolny Institute, where the lady patroness occupied an informal position. EI Nelidova is depicted in theatrical costume, in which she performed a dance performance on the stage of the theater of the Educational Society of Noble Maidens. the grace of her movements is revealed in the graceful turn of the figure, and the immediacy and charm are expressed in the fervent glitter of a brown almond-shaped eye and a sly smile. The inclination of Nelidova’s head to the left shoulder, accentuated by a ribbon hanging down, corresponds to the arms that outline the shape of the circle and the legs crossed with them.
Both the mobile face of the girl and the transparent apron, caught in the fingers of her right hand, are involved in the dance. All parts of the figure are permeated with a spiral motion. This movement captures with itself a part of the space bounded by an outstretched hand and a slightly raised apron. Paul I was fascinated by the grace and liveliness of Nelidova. She was genuinely attached to him and, although their relationship was never close, could influence Paul I and prevent his unwise decisions and hysteria.
With a significant intelligence and a lively, cheerful character, she soon became a friend and confidant of both the Grand Duke and the Grand Duchess. This gave rise to unseemly rumors about Nelidova. To stop them, she appealed in 1792 to Catherine II, without Pavel Petrovich’s knowledge, with a written request for permission to settle in the Smolny Convent, where she lived since 1793. On the day of her accession to the throne, Pavel Petrovich Nelidova reappears at the court, in the rank of chamber-maid of honor, and occupies a preeminent place. Her influence on the emperor was so great that almost all the main office and court seats were occupied by her friends and relatives. She saved the innocent more than once from the wrath of the emperor; sometimes she happened to provide protection to the empress herself; she managed to reject Pavel Petrovich from the destruction of the Order of St. George the Victorious. Since the court flatterers couldn’t praise her beauty, they praised her “prettiness of movements” and art in dancing. Nelidova differed rare at that time disinterestedness and refused even the gifts of the emperor.
In 1798, Pavel Petrovich felt a passion for A. P. Lopukhina; when she, at the highest invitation, moved to St. Petersburg, Nelidova retired to the Smolny Convent. Together with her, her friends and relatives should have retired from their places; even the empress at the time refused to manage educational homes and other charities. Soon Nelidova had to experience the emperor’s disfavor; enraged by her intercession for the empress, whom he wanted to send to the Kholmogory residence, Pavel Petrovich ordered her to leave St. Petersburg. Until the death of Paul I, Nelidova lived in the castle of Lod, near Reval. Back in 1801 in St. Petersburg, in the Smolny Monastery, she helped Empress Maria Feodorovna in the management of educational institutions.
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