Return of the Royal Treasure

One of the finest treasures of the collection of the Bagrationi Dynasty (a royal family that reigned in Georgia from the Middle Ages until the early 19th century, being among the oldest extant Christian ruling dynasties in the world) the portrait of King Teimuraz II, also known as the king illuminator and lyric poet, was created by the prominent Russian Imperial Court’s portrait artists Aleksey Antropov (1761-1795).

Considered to be lost for more than 275 years, the portrait holds a particular symbolic meaning as it reflects a Georgian king, who was constantly at war or on guard to save and defend his country from neighbouring conquerors and who still found time to translate, compose, virtually on horseback, his own poems and lyrics; The painting depicts an exquisite king who, while being on his mission to find a Christian ally by way of Russia, died suddenly in the capital Moscow on January 8, 1762 and could not come back to his homeland even after his death, as he was buried in the Cathedral of Assumption, Astrakhan.

By the time of Teimuraz’s reign, Georgia was fragmented into different independent kingdoms and principalities. The neighboring large empires exploited the internal division of the weakened country: the Safavid Iran (followed by its successive Iranian Afsharid and Qajar dynasties) and Ottoman Turkey subjugated the eastern and western regions of Georgia, respectively.

Hoping that the expanding Russian Empire would be the only protector for the Christians of Caucasus against the Ottoman and Persian aggressions, King Teimuraz II visited the Russian court in person in 1760. His aim was to gain support for his project of a Georgian expedition to Persia to put a Russian candidate on the shah’s throne.

Although Russia was too preoccupied with the Seven Years’ War, Empress Elizabeth received the Georgian king with respect and commissioned Aleksey Antropov (1761-1795) to portray the king.

The fact that Antropov truly fulfilled the Empress’s commission and depicted Teimuraz II on canvas was confirmed by the engraving presented to the King while visiting Typography of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1761. According to historical sources, Antropov’s painting got lost through hardships of times, whereas serval patterns of the engraving survived and are nowadays preserved in different state-owned and private collections.

The inscription below the engraving indicates that the etching was produced in Saint-Petersburg, in 1761, based on the portrayal by Antropov - by the masters Efim Vinogradov (1728-1769) and Aleksei Grekov (1723/26-1770?).

According to the inscriptions in Georgian (on the free area of the oval) and Russian (on the pedestal), "Teimuraz, the son of Nikoloz, successor of Georgia, Kakheti and Imereti, visited Her Highness the Empress of all Russia in St. Petersburg in 1761".

While working on the portrait of the king, Antropov apparently maintained his traditional style of painting - a soft combination of colors against a dark neutral background. The exquisitely depicted attire -a richly embroidered tunic and a turban- indicate the Georgian king’s status and authority.

The turban was of particular importance in the Muslim world, as it symbolised authority and dignity. Large white turbans with two or three red stripes connoted high social or religious status and each detail of the headwear indicated the status, age and origin of the owner.

UV-, IR- and X-ray imaging brought to light the past of the portrait. Like the king depicted in it, the painting has been through hard times. Initially, it was oval-shaped (like the engraving), but its edges have been trimmed in unknown circumstances.

The inspection also showed considerable (repaired) tears of the canvas and holes on the area of the left eye and cheek; however, 80 % of the original work is still preserved.
The X-ray examination revealed a Latin inscription hidden underneath the visible painting. The inscription is now being studied; it begins with the letter A.