This we learn from Gary M. Hamburg's Boris Chicherin & Early Russian Liberalism: 1828 - 1866 (1992), but nothing I have found so far illuminates the portrait of Stroganov's daughter, Princess Saltykov, This was a painting Karl Bryullov did about 1841. The elaborate frame includes details of the Stroganov arms-- the heraldic sable and eagles. The question of mine concerns the leopard skin rug or rugs at the feet of the Princess. One assumes this reflects an era when warm feet were a prerogative of royalty, but that is just a guess. Was a splash of southern exoticism part of how the Russian elite saw themselves? Well it is a lovely picture.

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