The medal-carver Charles Leberecht, seated in a green-painted chair, facing right in blue coat, open white shirt with lace jabot and frilled cuffs, his left hand holding an oval cameo of Minerva; landscape and stormy sky background

Charles Alexandrovich Leberecht (Meiningen 1749/1755-1827 St. Petersburg) left Germany for Russia and started his career as an engraver of coats-of-arms on seals, mainly working for the Russian aristocracy. He entered the Imperial Mint in 1779 and became a member of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts of St. Petersburg in 1794. The present miniature of him must have been painted about this time. After his naturalisation in 1799, Leberecht was appointed principal medal carver for the Imperial Mint and in 1800 became professor of medal carving at the Academy. He also was a honorary member of the Royal Academies of Berlin and Stockholm. His success was crowned by his nomination as professor of engraving to the Tsarina Maria Fyodorovna. Amont his best-known medals are those representing Empress Catherine the Great (1782), Suvorov, Demidov and Count A. Stroganov. For more information on him and a portrait of him by Tropinin, 1824, see Grand-Duke Nicholas Michailovich Romanov, Portraits Russes, St. Petersburg, 1905-1909, IV, no. 106, pl. LXVI.