Volume 22, Issue 1 | Spring 2023

Konstantin Flavitsky’s Princess Tarakanova (“Cockroach”) caused a succès de scandale at the annual exhibition of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg in 1864–65. The painting represents the legendary last moments of an impostor princess, who claimed to be the daughter of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna (r. 1741–62) and her lover, Alexei Razumovsky. Imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, she purportedly drowned in her cell during the famous flood of 1777 (in reality, she died in 1775). This article discusses the controversy caused by Flavitsky’s painting, which casts a shadow over the history of Russia’s imperial dynasty, as an example of the role played by nineteenth-century Russian visual art in uncovering secrets untold in the country’s official historiography.

The fonds Desjardins, a group of approximately 180 religious paintings purchased in France by the Roman Catholic priest Philippe-Jean-Louis Desjardins and shipped to Québec, Canada, between 1816 and 1820 to be placed in local churches, provides a fascinating window into the history of art in Québec. Many aspects of the formation of the fonds, however, remain a mystery, as few primary sources address the acquisition of these paintings. This article analyzes a recently rediscovered letter, written by Philippe Desjardins in 1805, which sheds light not only on his purchases for the fonds but also, more broadly, on the practices of Parisian art dealers following the French Revolution of 1789, particularly as it pertains to the sale of religious artworks removed from closed churches and monasteries that found their way to the art market.