Bust of Leo Tolstoy (Busto di Lev Tolstoj)

The present plaster was completed by Troubetzkoy in March 1899 in Moscow. The sculpture was documented by a few photographs, kept at the Leo Tolstoy Museum of Moscow and from Sofia Tolstaja’s diary pages. In these pages, it is written that Tolstoy regularly attended Troubetzkoy’s study. Sofia describes the sculpture as ”  the best of his sculpted portraits, which resembles Lev Nikolaevic” (S. Tolstaja, Moja Zizn, 1899. Manuscript n. 16, p. 197). The sculpture which had been executed in plaster and bronze was of great success, leading to other copies. At the Museo del Paesaggio there are two replicas of the plaster: one in plaster (inv. T n. 124) signed: Paul Troubetzkoy -18[…], and a second in marble (inv. T n. 340). Another replica in bronze was bought in 1900 and is now part of the Tretyakov Gallery Collection (signed and dated: Paul Troubetzkoy – 1899). Of the same dimensions as the present plaster, is a bronze with the Valsuani foundry stamp which is kept in the Troubetzkoy-Hahn collection in Milan. In Russia, the present bust was widely acclaimed. There are numerous copies of the present bust in museums worldwide.

Paul Troubetzkoy (1866-1938), Italy, until 1938;
By descent to the heirs, Rhoda Muriel Marie Somerwell and Luigi Troubetzkoy;
Donated to the Museo del Paesaggio, 1938-1939

Museo del Paesaggio, Verbania, 1990, n.76

D. Gavrilovich, in Paolo Troubetzkoy, 1990,p. 139, n. 76;
Paolo Troubetzkoy, La Collezione del Museo del Paesaggio, Palazzo Viani Dugnani, Verbania, 2017, p. 114