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Militaria and Political Auction
Lot 1281:
Italian Enlightenment
ALS
April 13, 1764
Milan, Austrian Hapsburg Empire File
A Russian In the Italian Enlightenment: Count Mikhail Vorontsov French
ALS to Venetian Art Collector
A Russian In the Italian Enlightenment: Count Mikhail Vorontsov French ALS to Venetian Art Collector
A 3pp autograph letter in French signed by Count Mikhail Illarinovich Vorontsov (1710-
1767), as "C. Michel Woronzow" on the third page. Vorontsov’s signature also appears an additional two times when writing his wife’s name as "Mde. de Woronzow" on pages 2 and 3. Written in Milan, Italy, then part of the Austrian Hapsburg Empire, on April 13,
1764. Inscribed on either side of laid watermarked bifold paper. The fourth page is blank.
Expected wear including transmittal folds, isolated pencil inscriptions by former collectors, and lightly rusted paper clip marks, else very good to near fine. 7.125" × 9.5."
Accompanied by an English catalog description from Union Art Galleries of New York City. From a recently discovered collection that has not seen the light of day for over 70 years!
Count Mikhail I. Vorontsov [variations of his surname include Woronzow, Woronzoff, and Worontzoff, with his first name francized as Michel) wrote this letter to Count Francesco Algarotti (1712-1764), a Venetian art collector, art critic, and amateur draftsman and printmaker. Algarotti was involved in the Italian Enlightenment then flourishing in Milan and Naples, with hubs in the Piedmont, Tuscany, and Veneto.
Count Mikhail Vorontsov had been an extremely important figure in the Russian Imperial Court throughout the 1740s-1760s. He was tied by marriage, family, and political alliance to Russian monarchs Catherine I, Elizabeth I, Peter III, and Catherine II.
Vorontsov enjoyed considerable favor after supporting Elizabeth’s 1741 coup d’état. In 1742, Vorontsov married Anna Karlovna Skavronskaya, a maternal first cousin of Elizabeth, and a niece of Catherine I. In 1744, Vorontsov was made a Count, and in the same year, he was also appointed Vice Chancellor, a role that he would fill until 1758.
Vorontsov served as Chancellor from 1758-1763. With the ascent of Catherine II, however, Vorontsov’s influence started to wane. Not only did Vorontsov dissuade Catherine II from marrying her dashing lover Grigory Orlov, but he also promoted his niece as mistress to Catherine’s husband, Peter III.
In August 1763, Vorontsov had departed for Italy on a 2-year-long trip to improve his health. While there, Vorontsov happily immersed himself in the Italian Enlightenment, as he himself was a patron and lover of the arts. Vorontsov’s portrait by French artist Louis Tocqué, painted in 1757, was immediately engraved by G.F. Schmidt and widely circulated. The politician had also commissioned imperial architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli to design Vorontsov Palace in St. Petersburg. Vorontsov took advantage of being in Italy to advance the career of his friend and protégé, the brilliant Russian polymath Mikhail Lomonosov (1711-1765), at the Bologna Academy of Sciences.
It was while on this extended stay in Italy, then, that Count Mikhail Vorontsov wrote Count Francesco Algarotti about acquiring artwork (likely from Algarotti’s extensive art collection) and employing a contract painter.
Punctuation has been silently added. Translated in part:
"I received the letter and the copy of your works in this city where I arrived the 10th instant and I am infinitely obliged to you, Monsieur, for both. I received them with the pleasure which everything that comes from you gives me…
I went to see your pictures, Monsieur, as one had marked it for you, and I was really happy. I will be very obliged for the catalogue that you promised me, and you would give me pleasure if you would attach the prices. You had the politeness to offer me my choice.
If I knew less about your sentiments I would abstain from making an indiscretion, but it would be doing you an injustice to have this fear. I ask you thus for your portrait for myself, and for the Rotunda for Mde. de Woronzow.
Regarding the Painter, the good that you told me about him, and the honor that he has to be your clerk redoubles the desire that I have to provide him with employment, and you can count on it, Monsieur, that this is close to my heart and I will have an eye on it.
Sadly, Count Algarotti died of tuberculosis in Pisa just two weeks after Count Vorontsov wrote this letter, on May 3, 1764. Count Vorontsov had grieved that Algarotti had been so dangerously ill, writing in our letter, "Mde. de Woronzow….curses, along with me, the doctor and the opium: it is necessary to throw both out the window
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