Russian painter and draftsman Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy was versatile gifted. He worked as a master of genre, historical and portrait painting, he was a prominent art critic.
Studying at the Imperial Academy of Arts, Kramskoy led the “Riot of Fourteen” artists who refused to write a final work on the theme of Scandinavian mythology and asked to choose a topic on their own. The talent of Kramsky-portraitist was highly appreciated by the monarchs.
In the 1880s he was commissioned Portrait of Empress Maria Feodorovna, wife of Alexander III. A magnificent ceremonial portrait shows a young, fragile empress in a pearl dress still quite young. Exquisite jewels are not overshadowed by the finely described willful face of the ruler, whose share fell years of family happiness, and terrible upheavals related to the death of children and grandchildren in revolutionary times.
Portrait de l’impératrice Maria Fyodorovna dans une robe perlée – Ivan Kramskoy 
Retrato de la emperatriz Maria Feodorovna en un sombrero de perlas – Ivan Kramskoy 
Kramskoy, writing a portrait of her daughter by Ivan Kramskoy 
Portrait of Leo Tolstoy by Ivan Kramskoy 
Portrait of Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov by Ivan Kramskoy 
Portrait de L. N. Tolstoy – Ivan Kramskoy 
Portrait of Solovyov by Ivan Kramskoy 
Portrait of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa by Jean-Étienne Lyotard