Peter I. The Apotheosis of Poltava

This allegorical painting glorifies the victory of Peter I’s Russian army over the Swedes at the Battle of Poltava on 27 June 1709, the largest battle of the Great Northern War. The tsar is shown on horseback, crowned with a laurel wreath by a trumpeting angel. Under the horse’s hooves lie Swedish banners and a defeated lion, the heraldic symbol of Sweden, while on the right Swedish officers hand their swords to Peter as a sign of surrender.

The composition is based on a lost engraving by D. Golyakhovsky of 1709, made under the impression of the Poltava victory. It was solemnly presented to Peter I in Kiev by Feofan Prokopovich, then a teacher at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy. The engraving’s composition was repeated more than once in 18th-century painting and decorative art. After Poltava, Peter came to be compared with the biblical Samson, who overcame a lion; later this image appeared in the central sculptural group of a fountain at Peterhof.

The picture was painted by an unknown artist in the early 18th century. Oil on canvas, 136 × 100 cm.