Implications for the development

Keywords
: portrait miniature, attribution, ivory, glyptics. 
Different schools of architectural heritage restoration past experience and practice, convince 
us that conducting a serious draft for any project is of great importance and more often than not 
result is a significant discovery. Thus while in search for historic material for restoration projec-
tion of Count M. S. Vorontsov’s Palace in Odessa (including interior) the author of this article 
came upon a previously unknown portrait of E. K. Vorontsova – spouse of the Palace’s first propri-
etor. A passage of this kind into the sphere of the arts pundits is quite justified. The fact is that the 
architects of the centuries past, having a thorough engineering background, took their profession 
as “noble art”, and the synthesis of arts was not a theory for them but a down to earth everyday 
practice. 
Defining the works of arts attributes, that’s finding the author and correct interpretation of the 
image in hand, is both the most interesting and the most complex task. Visiting museums, we of-
ten see notes: “Author unknown”, “A male’s portrait”, “A woman’s portrait”… Sometimes when the 
author is found we fail to identify the person depicted in the picture. To draw the curtain of mys-
tery, to give back the rightful name lost in time to the nameless image is a bit of luck and if the im-
age is that of a historically distinguished person? World renown treasure-museum – the Armory 
in the Moscow Kremlin-houses a significant collection of art miniatures. This collection preserves 
a number of high value works by Russian and foreign masters. Many experts tend to consider “the 
miniature” term to be of Latin origin “minium” (a red paint of cinnabar or red lead type which was 
used in Middle Ages to ornament manuscripts, for capital letters and illustrations). Apart from 
that the term is linked wilt the root of such Latin words as “minium” and “minor”. 
Miniature collections are seldom exhibited in the museum halls. The curators regard them 
to be fragile and sensitive even to minor temperature and humidity changes. This “veiling” of 

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Conferință științifică internațională, Chișinău, 22-23 septembrie 2020, ediția a II-a
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the collection hampers research. With all the wide range of miniatures exhibited in the Kremlin 
collection one callers for a particular interest “a lady’s profile” miniature painted with an exqui-
site mastership by AnselmLagrenee. I cite the words of L. M. Frolova from her work “Portrait 
miniatures of the 18
th
and 19
th
centuries”
1
published in 1985 by the Moscow “Imitative Arts” pub-
lishing house, a work small by volume but significant for cognition. “…The passion for antiq-
uity and the romantic tendencies in the art of the early 19
th
century are obvious in the works 
by A. Lagrenet [Anthelme Francois Lagrenee, 
remark by Yuri Pismak
], I. Bossi, J. Painshon,
A. Molinari. The antique cameos undoubtedly inspired the French artist A. Lagrenet [Lagrenee, 
remark by Yuri Pismak
]. The technique he used in painting half-faced portraits was designed 
to imitate the of cameo texture. His best work the portrait of Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna. 
The white ivory, left unpainted or only slightly tinted with golden-blue shades, renders perfectly 
the whiteness of skin. The clean-cut majestic profile stands out against the reddish-brown back-
ground interspersed white patches to imitate tortoise shell, the valuable material often used for 
ornamentation”
2
. 
We must admit that the craftsmanship of the French artist who per formed this image on the 
ivory plate imitating of glyptics in water-colours, is a work to admire. Glyptics is an art of stone-
cutting (derived from the Greek verb (glypho) – to cut. The cut stones (gems) are divided into 
two groups: intaglios and cameos. Intaglios are the incut impression on monochromatic stones 
(cornelian, amethyst) which served as seals. Cameos are gems with relief convexity impressions, 
cut on multi-layer stones, such as sardonyx, onyx and agate. 
It came to our knowledge later that the artist Anselm Francois Lagrenee (1774–1832) worked 
in Russian empire in 1817–1825 and was known as miniature master. But whose image was left 
by him on this oval miniature (fig. 1)? Count Mikhail Vorontsov and his spouse Elisabeth tend 
to order their portraits with Western-European masters. Dropping the list of the Count’s images 
want to render (even if not complete) but sufficiently detailed list of Countess (and later Princess) 
Elisabeth Vorontsova’s images.
List of Elisabeth Vorontsova’s portrait images:
1. Angelica Kauffmann (1741–1807). Alexandra Vasilievna Branitskaya with children (The girl 
with her head on her mother’s kness is the future Countess Elisabeth Vorontsova). Oil on canvas. 
Alupka Palace-museum;
1
L. M. Frolova,