“Courtly Gifts and Cultural Diplomacy” explores the history of British-Russian state relations from the perspective of art and material culture. This richly illustrated book presents manifold practices of courtly gift-giving and vivid case studies of British-Russian artistic diplomacy over the centuries. It traces a visual and material history of cross-cultural dialogue that starts with an early English map of Russia made in the 16th century and ends with gifts of Fabergé art objects and domestic photographs exchanged between the British royal family and the family of Tsar Nicholas II in late Imperial Russia. Twelve expert authors from academia, the arts, and the museum sectors in Britain, Russia, and the United States present new narratives and critical interpretations based on material from previously unexplored archives. Their diverse approaches reveal the importance of artistic diplomacy and the agency of gifts of art and material culture in courtly and state relations.

Sommaire

Front Matter
Preliminary Material

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Copyright page

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations

Notes on Contributors

Conventions

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Chapter 1 Introduction: Visual Culture and the History of British-Russian Relations

Author: Louise Hardiman
Pages: 1–26
Part I Art and Diplomacy
Chapter 2 Art and Acculturation: Sir Godfrey Kneller’s Portraits of Petr Potemkin (1682) and Peter the Great (1698)

Author: Louise Hardiman
Pages: 29–53
Chapter 3 Catherine II, the Cathcarts, and Russian Anglophilia

Author: Anthony Cross
Pages: 54–72
Chapter 4 Prince Grigorii Potemkin, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Anglo-Russian Artistic Diplomacy in the Age of Catherine the Great

Author: Elizaveta Renne
Pages: 73–94
Part II The Agency of Gifts
Chapter 5 “Give with One Hand and Take with the Other:” British Diplomatic Gifts to Russia, 1795–97

Author: Ekaterina Heath
Pages: 97–133
Chapter 6 Courtly Splendour and Cultural Identity: Nineteenth-century Russian Imperial Gifts for the British Royal Family

Author: Caroline de Guitaut
Pages: 134–160
Chapter 7 Alfred, Lord Tennyson and an Imperial Russian Gift

Author: Olga Sobolev
Pages: 161–192
Chapter 8 Fabergé Hardstone in Imperial Gifting from Russia to England

Author: Cynthia Coleman Sparke
Pages: 193–219
Part III Travels and Dialogues
Chapter 9 Gavriil Skorodumov and James Walker: Printmaking and British-Russian Relations in the Late Eighteenth Century

Author: Zalina Tetermazova
Pages: 223–251
Chapter 10 “Smart Travels:” The Encounters of Grand Duke Nicholas with British Art and Artists, 1816–17

Author: Irina Marisina
Pages: 252–287
Chapter 11 Tsar Alexander I, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and George Dawe: Masculinity and the Development of the St Petersburg Military Gallery

Author: Allison Leigh
Pages: 288–315
Part IV Dynasties and Domesticities
Chapter 12 The Wedding of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and Maria Alexandrovna of Russia in 1874 and its Visual Commemoration

Author: Stephen Patterson
Pages: 319–350
Chapter 13 Images of Nicholas II: (Mis-)interpreting the Last Tsar

Author: Wendy Slater
Pages: 351–385
Back Matter
Index