This portrait numbers among the rare contemporary depictions of Peter the Great. Weenix painted the work in Amsterdam during the Tsar’s first journey abroad in 1697–98. Despite the fact that it was not worn in the late 17th century, Peter is depicted in full armour against the background of a battle. His right hand holds a field marshal’s baton, while his gauntleted left rests on a helmet. In the foreground are the crown and sceptre. We have here a fairly idealized image of the Russian Tsar. The conventions of the European formal portrait demanded a particular solemn grandeur and an emphasis on nobility and knightly virtue, especially when the subject was a person of exalted rank.

The cabinet was one of the most characteristic pieces of Western European furniture from the 16th century onwards. Numerous drawers, including secret ones, were intended for the storage of documents, money and valuables. Quite often such pieces were given as expensive gifts. The cabinet in the Walnut Study, the works of Low Countries craftsmen in the second half of the 17th century, is stylistically exquisite and austere. It was finished with ebony and other wood painted in imitation of ebony, tortoiseshell and gilded bronze fittings from the late 17th or early 18th century. They reflect the then-fashionable marine theme: mascarons, figures of dolphins and Nereids, depictions of Neptune, the god of the sea, and Minerva, the goddess of wisdom. On the cabinet is a gunner’s quadrant with a sighting tube from the early 18th century that comes from the Cabinet of Peter the Great.