Portrait of Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia (1729-1796), full-length, in robes of state, standing before a draped column

The present portrait is a well-known iconic representation of the Empress. The composition is predominantly after Alexander Roslin's (1718-1793) 1777 portrait of the Empress, held in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum while the face is painted after Fedor Rokotov (1736-1808), who painted the Empress on various occasions. Numerous versions of the 'Rokotov-Roslin' portrait type exist; examples are held in the collection of the State Historical Museum, Moscow and that of Tsarskoe Selo, St Petersburg as well as in several private collections.