Room II
The collection in this room consists mainly of portraits and commemorative works for the Russian royal family, made prior to the revolution, and funerary monuments commissioned by important Italian families.
Canonica consolidated his reputation as a portrait artist and creator of commemorative works at the Tsar’s court, creating numerous portraits of the imperial family and key members of the Russian nobility, for Tsar Nicholas II and the Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna. The Tsar also commissioned two large celebratory works from the artist: the monument to Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolajevich and a monument to Tsar Alexander II. Both of these works were destroyed during the years of the revolution and remain only in the form of the two large original models which are displayed in the Room and in the historical photographs in the Museum Archive.
The funerary works, Laura Vigo, The Barrage and the Orphan Girl, are perhaps among the artist’s most intense works.
