Portrait of his wife Anelė

This canvas, which is in private collections, depicts a young noble woman dressed in clothes of the first half of the 19th century. The portrait is intimate and intimate, not intended for representation, but rather as a memory for her relatives. An inscription on the other side of the frame indicates that it is a portrait of Mrs Dochtorovičienė, painted by Valentinas Vankavičius, a student of the famous Vilnius Art School. V. Vankavičius is one of the most famous artists of Vilnius Art School. He was born in Kalužytsy Manor (present-day Belarus), studied at the Jesuit Academy in Polotsk, studied at Vilnius University from 1818 to 1824 (he studied painting and drawing with J. Rustem), and from 1825 to 1829 he studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts under the direction of the Vilnius University of Arts. Afterwards, he lived on his estate near Minsk and in Vilnius. In 1839 he went abroad and died in Paris in 1842, in the apartment of his friend, the poet Adam Mickiewicz, and was buried in Montmartre Cemetery.V. Vankavičius' works are not numerous in Lithuanian collections.