IN THE SHADOW OF CATHERINE THE GREAT : 1750-1825 with Eugene Barilo Von Reisberg

The first lecture focuses on the Russian Imperial Family during the successive reigns of Catherine II, Pavel I, and Alexander I, and follows the lives of the Romanov women in the shadow of the formidable Empress; their menace under the rule of the increasingly mad Pavel; and greater visibility and autonomy during the reign of Alexander. Among the notable personages discussed in the lecture are the Grand Duchess and Empress Maria Feodorovna, who bore her husband ten children and yet was implicated in his assassination in 1801; Anna Feodorovna, who escaped her sadistic husband Konstantin into a self-imposed exile in Switzerland; Anna Pavlovna, whose hand in marriage was sought by Napoleon I; and Maria Pavlovna, who married a German prince and transformed his provincial Weimar into the cultural capital of Europe.

EUGENE BARILO VON REISBERG is a Melbourne-based arts writer, curator, and blogger. His research on Franz Xaver Winterhalter, a 19th century elite portrait specialist, is widely recognised, and he has contributed numerous articles and presented lectures on the artist in Australia and internationally. He is currently pursuing a doctoral thesis on the artist at The University of Melbourne.

Alexander Roslin (1718-1793), Portrait of Maria Feodorovna, Empress of Russia 1759-1828) (detail), 1777, The State Hermitage and Winter Palace Museum, St Petersburg