Tsar Alexander I, ormolu portrait medallion

Description

Set with a gilt medal dated 1811 showing the Emperor in profile and signed I. Shilov on the truncation, in a very fine ormolu frame. Diameter 7.3cm

Ivan A Shilov (1787-1827), a medallist, was a pupil at the St. Petersburg Academy. He was made Academician in 1810 and taught as a professor at the Academy from 1815-1825.

In 1807, to mark the 50th anniversary in service of its president, the Academy commissioned Shilov to produce a portrait medal after a wax relief of Count A.S. Stroganov by K.A. Leberecht.
Shilov was collaborator on Count Feodor Tolstoy’s famous series of plaster bas reliefs depicting classical scenes devoted to the major battles of the Napoleonic wars of 1812-1814 including the major events of the military campaign of 1812. These achieved a great success abroad and resulted in Tolstoy being made a member of almost all European academies of fine arts. Shilov contributed the medallion ‘1816’ to the series.
A gold box made in1826 by Keibel (inv.no. Ǝ-4085) in the Hermitage, set in the cover with a medal by Alexejev showing Nicholas I in profile, is mounted inside with a carneol cameo portrait of Alexander I by Shilov, in a black enamel frame, thus celebrating the memory of Alexander I and the coronation of Nicholas I.