Portrait of M. P. Komarowski

Taras Shevchenko. Portrait of Mikhail Petrovich Komarowski (?). Stained paper, an Italian and a white pencil (31.8 × 25.5 cm). [15.IX 1857]. Taras Shevchenko National Museum, inv. g – 865.

Bottom right pencil inscription: Shevchenko 57.

Lower left barely visible pencil inscription may Shevchenko hand, unreadable.

It is one of four portraits by Shevchenko on the boat while traveling from Astrakhan Volga in Nizhny Novgorod in 1857, which belonged to A. A. Sapozhnikov.

About portrait of M. P. Komarowski Shevchenko recorded in diary on September 15, 1857:

"Using this brief parking and long quiet passage through this Urakovsky roll, I painted white and black pencil, quite successfully, portrait of Mykhailo Petrovich Komarowski, the future captain of the future Sapozhnikov's ship, for what he gave me his warm velvet boots".

As a portrait of Komarowski first published by M. I. Matsapura ["Unpublished pictures of Shevchenko", "Soviet Art" from 17.III 1949, № 11].

Storage areas: property of A. A. Sapozhnikov family, G. Ja. Kuuzik, Gallery of pictures Shevchenko, Kharkiv.

N. P. Prokopenko

After publication: Taras Shevchenko Complete Works in 10 volumes. – Kyiv: ed. Academy of sciences of UkrSSR, 1963, v. 10, № 11 (image), p. 10 (note).