Baroness D.E. Graevenitz

Portrait of Baroness Daria E. Graevenitz, daughter of Count de Beauharnais. She was born Countess DeBougogne, and was a relative of Napoleons wife's, Josephine. (as per Madame Augusta Pobedinskaya, curator at The Hermitage as told to the family. We were told that after the Revolution, she worked in the biggest library in Moscow) According to the curator, this portrait is from the collection of the Golitsyn family.

Interesting sidenote: The black and white photo in the original album compiled by the artists daughter Natasha shows the painting of the Baroness without the gold colored ears (bow?) of her pet.  The supposition is that Stember added the gold accents after it was originally completed but before giving it to Baroness Grevenitz.  The photo also has the date of 1910, not 1912 that it was painted.

This portrait resides in The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia and was viewed by the family there in 2006.  The Hermitage has a gallery that is kept as the Czar's family quarters were before the Russian Revolution.  This painting as well as two others are in the salon or 'living room': #186: Sophia Raevskaya and #188 A.V. Balashova with her daughter.

This painting was also featured in the 'Nicholas and Alexandra-The Last Czar of Russia' Exhibition that traveled to several American cities in 1998.  Two other Stember paintings (# 186 Rayevskaya and #191: Count Sheremetev were included and can be seen in Photos #  and # on this site. Members of the family were fortunate to be able to see this exhibit in person.

This painting is noted in the Hermitage as being painted by Shtemberg, a variation on the Stember name. The reference number to this painting as categorized by The Hermitage is #1794.

Provenance: Acquired from the State Museum of Ethnography of the USSR in1941; previously in the collection of M.K. Golitsyna.

Additional lengthy biography of Baroness Graevenitz can be found in the book: Nicholas and Alexandra The Last Imperial Family of Tsarist Russia.