2-708-720 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'Princess Tarakanova in the Petropavlovsk Fortress at the Time of the Flood', 1863, (1965). Elizabeth Tarakanova (c1745-1775) was a pretender to the Russian throne, having claimed to be a daughter of the Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. She was kidnapped by Count Orlov on the orders of Catherine the Great, and died of tuberculosis in the Peter and Paul Fortress in Saint Petersburg. Another version of the story claims that Tarakanova died in her cell during the great flood of 1777. Painting in the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. From "Russian Painting of the 18th and 19th Centuries" by Vladimir Fiala. [Artia, Czechoslovakia, 1965]