. 120,000-180,000 GBP Provenance: Collection of Baroness von Mirbach, Latvia and Germany, 1940s. Thence by descent. Collection of an engineer and architect Leon Dietz D’Arma, Poland (plaques on the backing board). Authenticity certificate from the expert S. Podstanitsky. Literature: Leon Dietz, O neizvestnom portrete Levitskogo i liubvi romanticheskoi, manuscript, early XX century, The State Hermitage Museum, The Research Library, , mentioned in the text. N. Gershenson-Chegodaeva, Dmitry Grigorievich Levitsky, Moscow, Iskusstvo, 1964, p. 379, mentioned in the text. N. Moleva, Dmitry
. 120,000-180,000 GBP Provenance: Collection of Baroness von Mirbach, Latvia and Germany, 1940s. Thence by descent. Collection of an engineer and architect Leon Dietz D’Arma, Poland (plaques on the backing board). Authenticity certificate from the expert S. Podstanitsky. Literature: Leon Dietz, O neizvestnom portrete Levitskogo i liubvi romanticheskoi, manuscript, early XX century, The State Hermitage Museum, The Research Library, , mentioned in the text. N. Gershenson-Chegodaeva, Dmitry Grigorievich Levitsky, Moscow, Iskusstvo, 1964, p. 379, mentioned in the text. N. Moleva, Dmitry Grigorievich Levitsky, Moscow, Iskusstvo, 1980, pp. 12–13, 222–224, mentioned in the text, Nos. 42, 43 and 44, illustrated. Gosudarstvennyi Russkiy muzei. Zhivopis’. Pervaya polovina XIX veka. Katalog (K–Ya) , vol. 3, almanac, issue 193, St Petersburg, Palace Editions, 2007, p. 55, mentioned in the text. The Portrait of Alexander Stakhiev, painted in 1818, boasts an exceptional provenance and illustration history, having been reproduced in several influential publications. Moreover, it is a unique artifact of its time, holding a key to one of the most intriguing literary mysteries of the epoch of sentimentalism. The first to identify the mysterious sitter was the Polish intellectual, Leon Dietz. After World War II he wrote an article about this portrait, which he happened to inherit from Baroness von Mirbach, who had fled the Baltics in 1944 and settled in Germany. The article manuscript, which used to be kept in the library of the Hermitage, sheds light on the truly fascinating history of this portrait. The stylish sitter, sporting prominent sideburns, dressed in a frock coat with an embroidery-trimmed waistcoat and a flamboyant tie in the early XIX century fashion, was the son of Alexander Stakhiev, an influential diplomat under Catherine the Great. Following his father’s career advice, Stakhiev the younger also enrolled in diplomatic service, accompanying his fa
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