This miniature depicts the military commander Prince Fedor Petrovich Uvarov (1769-1824). As is traditional, the prince is shown in ceremonial dress: he wears a red coat with a silver and blue striped collar, silver epaulettes and lacing. Over his coat he wears a blue moiré silk sash, on which various medals are pinned: among these is the breast star of the Russian Order of St. Andrew, the breast stars of St George and St Vladimir, the medal of 1812, the Maria Theresia and the ‘Pour le Mérite’. The miniature is painted after an oil portrait by George Dawe. In the lower right, the portrait is signed ‘Winberg fecit’, the mark of the Russo-Swedish miniaturist Ivan Winberg. Winberg worked mainly in Russia, where he was a court painter; he was made an associate of the Academy of St Petersburg in 1830 and a member in 1846.
Prince Fedor Petrovich Uvarov was born in 1769. A distinguished soldier, he fought in the Russo-Swedish War of 1788-90 and served under Alexander Suvorov during the Polish Uprising of 1794, quickly rising through the ranks to become colonel. He moved to Moscow in 1798, where he became a favourite of Tsar Paul (Emperor of Russia 1796-1801), who in 1799 awarded him the Order of St. Anne, first class. In 1801, however, Uvarov participated in the conspiracy to remove the Tsar from the throne: he was assassinated in his bedroom by a gang of nobles furious at his policy reforms. Uvarov fought in a series of campaigns against the French and led the Moldavian army’s advance guard in the Russo-Turkish War of 1806-12. He became a close friend of Tsar Paul’s son and successor Alexander I, whose imperial service he entered in 1813, and won the order of St George at Austerlitz, among many other honours. He died in St Petersburg in 1824.