Alexander I

This is a picture of Alexander I- the mildest man to ever wear a crown. look at him: what a sweet, gentle face. Certainly not cut out to be an autocratic warlord.

Here he is again- in a painting by his court painter George Dawe. He's trying to look all military and the effect is little boy playing dress-up.



George Dawe? Yes Alexander's court painter was an Englishman. We Brits have forgotten all about him but the Russians still rate him highly. His images- which are somewhat flat and playing-cardy- appealed to a taste that had been formed by the native tradition of icon painting. The usual British practice has been to import court painters- Holbein, Van Dyck, Winterhalter- but here's one we exported. We should be proud of him.

That was an aside. Returning to Alexander it seems to me entirely plausible, looking at that face of his, that he might have jumped ship mid-career and reinvented himself as an eremitical holy man....