Portrait of the Empress Catherine II of Russia (1729-1796), half-length, in travelling costume, wearing the star of the Russian Order of St. Andrew signed in cyrillic and dated 'K. Petr Drozhdin 1797' [Copied by] Petr Drozhdin 1797] oil on canvas 28 1/8 x 21¾ in. (71.3 x 55.2 cm.)

Provenance

Presumably presented to Sir Charles Whitworth, K.B., subsequently 1st Earl Whitworth, G.C.B., P.C. (1752-1825), when Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Imperial Court (1788-1800), and by whom bequeathed to his widow Arabella, Duchess of Dorset (1767-1825), widow of John Frederick Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset, K.G., P.C. (1745-1799), Knole Park, Kent, and by family inheritance at Knole (recorded in a mss. Catalogue of Pictures at Knole taken in 1828, no. 508, in the Venetian Bedroom, 'Portrait of the Empress Catharine of Russia'), through her daughter by her first marriage Lady Elizabeth Sackville, subsequently Sackville-West, and from 1864 Baroness Buckhurst in her own right (1795-1870), wife of George, 5th Earl De La Warr, P.C. (1791-1869), to their younger son