# Portrait of Nicholas I [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [VERNET, Horace]() - Date: 1801-1850 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 55 x 46 cm ## Commentary Portrait of Nicholas I 1830s Oil on canvas, 55 x 46 cm The Hermitage, St. Petersburg Nicholas I \(1796-1855\), Russian emperor \(1825–55\), is often considered the personification of classic autocracy; for his reactionary policies, he has been called the emperor who froze Russia for 30 years. He was the founder of the Imperial Hermitage as a public museum. Horace Vernet enjoyed great success with the Russian court. He was an exponent of history painting and battle scenes and directed the French academy in Rome. He visited Russia several times \(in 1836, 1838, 1842-43\); during his sojourns he accompanied Nicholas on military manoeuvres, was granted hereditary nobility, and received a diamond-encrusted Order of St. Alexander Nevsky. ## Related artworks - [A Saddled Race Horse Tied to a Fence]() - [An Invalid Submitting a Petition to Napoleon at a Parade in the Courtyard of the Tuileries Palace]() - [Angel of Death]() - [Arab Chieftains in Council \(The Negotiator\)]() - [Equestrian portrait of Charles Albert, King of Sardinia]() - [Hunting Scene \(detail\)]() - [Hunting Scene]() - [Hunting Scene]() - [Judah and Tamar]() - [Louis-Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, in a Swiss Landscape]() - [Mazeppa and the Wolves]() - [Mazeppa]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()