Mother with Child (Princess Gagarina with her daughter) (Madre con bambina (Principessa Gagarina con la figlia)

The present portrait depicts the princess Marina Nikolaevna Gagarina (1877-1924) with her daughter Marina (1897-1923), cousin of Paul Troubetzkoy. Daughter of the Prince Nikolaj Troubetzkoy, musician and philanthropist, she married prince and amateur artist Nikolaj Viktorovijc Gagarin (1873-1925) and had four children. The second daughter is portrayed in the present plaster, with her mother. According to Gavrilovich (2017) it is very likely that the plaster had been used to cast the bronze group sculpture of the same subject, which is now kept at the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. This can be demonstrated by the inscription present on the plaster, which reports the name of two locations, Intra-Petersburg 1898 (a rarity for Troubetzkoy to report both date and locations of execution and casting). Always according to Gavrilovich (2017), in three years Troubetzkoy had cast this model in plaster, marble and bronze. Some of these sculptures do not show their date or signature, just like the replica in plaster (inv. T n. 228) and one in marble (inv. T n. 187), both kept at the Museo del Paesaggio in Verbania.

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

Mostra Troubetzkoy-Ranzoni, Museo Storico, Pallanza, 1952;
Museo del Paesaggio, Verbania, 1990,n. 66

Troubetzkoy L.- Giolli R., Paolo Troubetzkoy nel Museo di Pallanza, 1866-1937 (sic), Milano, s.d. (1952);
D. Gavrilovich in Paolo Troubetzkoy 1866-1938, exh. cat., Turin, 1990, p. 130, n. 66;
Paolo Troubetzkoy, La Collezione del Museo del Paesaggio, Palazzo Viani Dugnani, Verbania, 2017, p. 106