Notes on the Bronze Horseman (Медный всадник) and Vasilii Surikov

Surikov's Bronze Horseman

Vasilii Surikov (Василий Иванович Суриков, 1848-1916), Monument to Peter the Great on Senate Square,
oil on canvas, 1870, The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

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Professor Blois comments on Falconet's Bronze Horseman:

My favorite image of the Bronze Horseman is Vasilii Surikov's painting of it with St Isaac's in the background on a cold, moonlit night. This painting was exhibited in DC (@ the Renwick, which housed the exhibition "Russian painting 1850-1910" which was on view in 1986 and had been delayed from its original 1980 show date by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan).

 

 

 

 

The Bronze Horseman image appears everywhere in Russia, even here, on one of my favorite chocolate bars.

Russian Chocolate
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Speaking of Falconet's Bronze Horseman. While Étienne Maurice Falconet (1716-1791) did the famous statue, his only son, Pierre-Étienne Falconet, (1741-1791), was an engraver who painted the following portrait of Catherine II.

Falconet's Catherine the Great

Pierre-Etienne Falconet, Portrait of Catherine II, 1773, Source: www.hillwoodmuseum.org/art_collection/paintings/b1.html