Background
Christina Robertson was born on December 17, 1796, in Kinghorn, Fife, Scotland. She was the daughter of a Scottish coach painter.
Christina Robertson was born on December 17, 1796, in Kinghorn, Fife, Scotland. She was the daughter of a Scottish coach painter.
Christina Robertson seems to have been taught to paint by her uncle, the miniaturist George Sanders (1774-1846).
Leaving her husband and children in England, Christina Robertson traveled extensively in the 1830s, working in Paris between 1836 and 1838 and extending her range of clients to include a cosmopolitan elite of European society. In 1839 she was drawn to work in St Petersburg, possibly because of the successful sale of her work there by an agent or because she intended fulfilling a commission to paint several large-scale oil portraits to replace the many paintings damaged in a fire at the Winter Palace in 1837.
Christina stayed in St. Petersburg until 1841, when she was awarded the title of honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Arts for her full-length oil portraits of Empress Alexandra and three of her daughters, which were shown there that year. Christina Robertson had also been appointed to paint Tsar Nicholas I in 1840; other commissions at the imperial court soon followed.
Christina Robertson had also been appointed to paint Tsar Nicholas I in 1840; other commissions at the imperial court soon followed. Late in 1841, she broke off her visit to St Petersburg, at the height of her success, to return to London, where she continued to maintain a studio and to exhibit at the Royal Academy until 1844. She exhibited a historical subject, The Meeting of Amy Robsart and the Lord Leicester (exh. Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg) at the British Institution in 1847, showing that she was not unaware of changing tastes in British pictures at the time.
When she returned to St Petersburg in 1849, however, it was once again as an oil portraitist that she achieved success, painting portraits of the tsar's daughters-in-law and copies of the earlier portraits of his daughters for the Romanov gallery in the Winter Palace. Although only one of these portraits was paid for she painted a steady stream of watercolors in her final years, which staved off financial hardship and also marked the apogee of her stylistic achievement, being more complex in composition and freer in handling than the work she produced during her first visit to Russia.
Portrait of Princess Zinaida Yusupova
1840Grand Duchess of Russia, Alexandra Nikolaievna, daughter of Nikolai I
Portrait of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna
Maria Nicolaevna, Duchess of Leuchtenberg
1845Portrait of Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov
1840Countess Sophia Mikhailovna Vorontsov
Olga Ivanovna Orlova-Davydova (Baryatinsky)
1841Olga Ivanovna Orlova-Davydova (Baryatinsky)
Portrait of Princess Maria Ivanovna Kochubey
1845Portrait of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna
1848Zinaida Yusupova (Naryshkina)
1845Portrait of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna
1851Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna
1850Portrait of Grand Duchesses Olga Nikolaevna and Alexandra Nikolaevna
1840Duchess Maria Feodorovna Baryatinsky, née. Keller
1845Portrait of Grand Duchess Zinaida Yusupova
1845Vladimir Orlov-Davydov
1840Portrait of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna
Children with Parrot
1850Self-portrait
1822Portrait of Empress Alexandra Fedorovna
1842Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna with Her Children
1849Great Duchess Elena Pavlovna
1841Portrait of Empress Alexandra Fedorovna
1845Princess Tatiana Vasilievna Yusupova
1841Alexandra Feodorovna (Charlotte of Prussia)
1845Portrait of Julia Feodorovna Kurakina
1841Portrait of Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna
Maria Nicolaevna, Duchess of Leuchtenberg
1845Empress Alexandria Fedorovna
1851
On May 23, 1823 Christina married James Robertson. They had eight children, of whom four survived into adulthood.