An etched portrait of Fedor Iwanowitsch; head and shoulders turned three-quarters to the left. He has a moustache with a slight beard, and wears a fur-trimmed cap. Inscribed in engraved letters on the text plate: The portrait of fedor, a Kalmuck Slave, / (Drawn & Engraved by himself;) / who was given by the present Empress of Russia, to her Mother / the Margravine of Baden; having shewn a disposition for / the Arts the Margravine sent him to Rome, in order to improve / himself in Painting & Drawings; he now resides in Carlsruhe, / where he enjoys the reputation of a clever Artist. / Pub.d Aug.t 1. 1815.

Feodor Iwanowitsch Kalmück, as he came to be styled (under various spellings), was born in the Russian Caucasus, in what is now the Republic of Kalmykia. His people, the Kalmyk, were Mongols who had migrated in 1607 from what is now mostly Xinjiang province in Western China. Tsarist oppression during the eighteenth century led to an attempt to return east in 1771, but many Kalmyk were unable to escape and were killed or enslaved by the forces of Catherine the Great. The inscription on the print records that Feodor was enslaved and given by Louise of Baden, consort of the Russian Emperor Alexander I, to her mother, Princess Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt (wife of Charles Louis, Hereditary Prince of Baden), and that his artistic skills led to his liberty.

Having studied in Italy, Feodor entered the service of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, and travelled with him on his embassy to Ottoman Turkey in 1799–1803 (during which period the ‘Elgin Marbles’ were removed from the frieze and pediment of the Parthenon); in the British Museum is an album of 80 drawings by Feodor compiled on this journey, illustrating these sculptures and others in Greece. On his return to Western Europe, Feodor settled in Karlsruhe as a painter, draughtsman and printmaker. This delicately etched self-portrait shows that, in addition to his mastery of the medium, his 'exotic' story was being marketed to his potential patrons.

Text adapted from Portrait of the Artist, London, 2016