Louis Caravaque. Portrait of Peter I

This portrait of Peter I was painted in the 1720s by Louis Caravaque, a French painter in the service of the Russian court. The emperor is shown bareheaded, in a general army uniform, with a field marshal's baton and the Order of St Andrew the First-Called; in the opening of his unbuttoned coat the blue moiré ribbon of the order can be seen, passing over his right shoulder.

The background recalls the Great Northern War. Behind Peter is the combined Anglo-Dutch-Danish-Russian squadron off the coast of Denmark, and in the upper right is a view of Copenhagen. In August 1716 the ship of the line Ingermanland, flying Peter I's flag, led the combined Russian-Danish-Dutch-English fleet as it sailed out into the Baltic Sea.

Caravaque was born in Marseille in 1684, signed a contract in Paris in 1715 and lived in Russia from 1716. He was court painter to Peter I, then to Anna Ioannovna and Elizabeth Petrovna. The portrait is painted in oil on canvas and set in a lavish carved and gilded frame topped with a medallion and banners.