Alexander Orlovsky was a Russian painter, draughtsman and printmaker of Polish birth. He trained at the Warsaw studio of Jan Piotr Norblin de la Gourdaine and received support from Princess Isabella Czartoryska. He also studied under the Polish court painter Marcello Bacciarelli, the engraver Bartolomeo Follin and the Polish miniaturist Wincenty Fryderyck Lesseur (1745-1813). Until the turn of the century, Orlovsky's career was marked by alternating periods of concentrated work and of travel abroad, often as a soldier or entertainer. Few works from this period survive. Orlovsky's early paintings were timid and imitative; his drawings, however, are assured, elegant and amusing, suggesting the influence of Norblin's comb...