Empress Elizaveta Petrovna

A review of the book by S. A. Mezin and the publication of an interesting historical source written in 1757 by Chevalier d’Eon, a diplomat and adventurer is presented. The manuscript “Secret Anecdotes about the Court of the All-Russian Empress” is published for the first time both in French and in Russian. In the peer-reviewed book the source characteristic and the analysis of the manuscript, scientific comments, the detailed essay on French studies of Russia in 1725–1762 were qualitatively made.

The article considers lifetime portraits of Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, painted by artists that worked in Russia in the middle of the 18th century. The author attempted to identify the place of the portrayal genre in representation of the image of the Russian Empress and to show that a portrait as a genre of fine art created in a certain historical period can be a visual source for studying a statesman, and can also supplement existing documentary evidence of an era.