Red and white currants

Currants were popular motifs for Fedor Tolstoi: after presenting a similar work to Empress Elisabeth Alekseevna, wife of Emperor Alexander I, the artist was presented with a diamond ring and thereafter was commissioned to repeat the composition whenever the Empress required a gift for a member of the Imperial family or an important member of the court. According to his daughter, Tolstoi claimed that his '...whole family was fed by a single currant'. A similar version of this watercolour, dated 1818, is in the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.