Equestrian Portrait of Catherine the Great

Post 1762

Vigilius Ericksen

Canvas, oil paint

In this portrait by the Danish artist Vigilius Ericksen, Catherine the Great is portrayed wearing an officer's uniform of the Semenovsky Guard Regiment, with a blue ribbon of the Order of Saint Andrew, riding her horse Brilliant on the day of the coup d'etat of 28 June 1762 (on the tree we see the monogram of Catherine II and the date).

This work is a reduced size copy by the painter of the original, which was done for the audience hall in the Great Palace of Peterhof. The Peterhof canvas is one of the main works done by Ericksen during his stay in Russia and it was copied a number of times both by him and by other artists.

The painting is interesting as a kind of ‘double portrait': in addition to Catherine the Great, it captures Brilliant, Catherine's ‘buckwheat gray' horse whose likeness is given with all possible verisimilitude and liveliness. He proudly arches his purebred neck and looks expressively at the spectator with an intelligent and brilliant eye.