LERMONTOV M. (1814-1841) AND PRINCE DOLGORUKOV N.A. (1792-1847) Theresa von Klupffell. Landscape, circa 1840

Watercolour on paper, laid down on paper. 8 x 15 cm; sheet 19.2 x 24 cm. Inscribed in German: ‘Gezeichnet von Fraulein Theresa von Klupffell’. On the reverse, Lermontov’s poem ‘Molitva’ [Prayer] (‘In life’s hard moments...’). Inscribed in French in the left margin: ‘Souvenir du prince Nicolas Dolgorouky 1842’. The poem ‘Prayer’ was written by Lermontov in 1839 and first published after his death, in 1842. In 1842 a sad event occurred in the life of Prince Dolgorukov (1792-1847), Adjutant General and Governor General of Lithuania and Little Russia: his son Alexander Dolgorukov (1819-1842), an officer of the Life Guards Hussar Regiment and one of Lermontov’s comrades-in-arms, was killed in a duel. Dolgorukov and Lermontov were close friends. Both were members of the St Petersburg circle ‘Les Seize’ (‘The Sixteen’) and took part in the Caucasian expeditions of 1840; Alexander Dolgorukov met Lermontov in Pyatigorsk in the last months of the poet’s life. Albums with drawings by Dolgorukov, beneath which Lermontov wrote verse inscriptions, have survived. In the last year of his life Dolgorukov served in Tsarskoe Selo. From the early 1840s the family of General V.F. Klupffell (1796-1885), director of the Pavlovsk Cadet Corps, lived in Pavlovsk.