Baroness D.E. Graevenitz

Portrait of Baroness Daria Evgenievna Graevenitz (1870-1937), born Daria de Beauharnais, Countess of Leuchtenberg, the daughter of Duke Evgeny (Eugen) of Leuchtenberg. The Leuchtenberg line descends from Eugène de Beauharnais, the son of Napoleon's wife Josephine, and through her grandmother, Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, she was a great-granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I. She was first married to Prince Lev Kochubei and then to Baron Vladimir von Graevenitz. She died in 1937, reportedly shot in Leningrad during the Great Terror.¹ (as per Madame Augusta Pobedinskaya, curator at The Hermitage as told to the family. We were told that after the Revolution, she worked in the biggest library in Moscow) According to the curator, this portrait is from the collection of the Golitsyn family.

Interesting sidenote: The black and white photo in the original album compiled by the artists daughter Natasha shows the painting of the Baroness without the gold colored ears (bow?) of her pet.  The supposition is that Stember added the gold accents after it was originally completed but before giving it to Baroness Grevenitz.  The photo also has the date of 1910, not 1912 that it was painted.

This portrait resides in The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia and was viewed by the family there in 2006.  The Hermitage has a gallery that is kept as the Czar's family quarters were before the Russian Revolution.  This painting as well as two others are in the salon or 'living room': #186: Sophia Raevskaya and #188 A.V. Balashova with her daughter.

This painting was also featured in the 'Nicholas and Alexandra-The Last Czar of Russia' Exhibition that traveled to several American cities in 1998.  Two other Stember paintings (# 186 Rayevskaya and #191: Count Sheremetev were included and can be seen in Photos #  and # on this site. Members of the family were fortunate to be able to see this exhibit in person.

This painting is noted in the Hermitage as being painted by Shtemberg, a variation on the Stember name. The reference number to this painting as categorized by The Hermitage is #1794 (inventory ЭРЖ-1794), and it measures 156.5 x 115 cm.

Provenance: previously in the collection of M.K. Golitsyna. Entered the Hermitage in 1946 from the Museum of Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR.

Additional lengthy biography of Baroness Graevenitz can be found in the book: Nicholas and Alexandra The Last Imperial Family of Tsarist Russia.

¹ Unconfirmed. The Hermitage record (digital-collection record 173024) gives her death year as 1937. That she was shot in Leningrad that year comes from published accounts found in the 2026 research, which have not yet been checked against a primary record such as the Leningrad Martyrology, the published register of victims of the Terror.