Ze waren rijk, immens rijk.
Mijnbouw in Siberië, naast talloze landgoederen.En al zal je de naam Graaf Felix Sumarokov-Elstone niet veel zeggen, als ik hem als ‘prins Yussupov’ voorstel, gaat er alvast een historisch belletje rinkelen.

De naam Yussopov namen ze over van moeders kant omdat die anders bij gebrek aan mannelijke opvolging dreigde verloren te gaan.

Deze rijke mooie jongen werd in 1887 geboren en is hier naar eigen zeggen bijna 17 want zoals we kunnen lezen in zijn memoires zou het in 1904 zijn geweest toen Serov het portret schilderde, terwijl Serov zelf het in 1903 dateert.

Het portret is geschilderd in het buitengoed van de familie ‘Arkhangelskoye’.
En we laten het model zelf aan het woord:

Arkhangelskoye had a friend and admirer after my own heart in the person of Serov, the artist who came to paint our portraits in 1904.

He was a delightful man. Of all the artists I have ever met in Russia or elsewhere, my memory of him is the most precious and vivid. His admiration for Arkhangelskoye, which revealed his acute sensibility, was the basis of our friendship.
In an interval between sittings, we sometimes went into the park, sat down on a bench under the trees, and had long talks, His advanced ideas influenced the development of my mind considerably. I must add that in his opinion there would have been no cause for a Revolution if all rich people had been like my parents.

Serov bad a great respect for his art and never consented to paint a portrait unless the model interested him. He refused to paint a very fashionable lady of St. Petersburg whose face did not inspire him. However, be finally yielded to the lady’s entreaties but, after the last sitting, he added to the portrait an enormous hat, which concealed three-quarters of her face. When the model protested, he replied that the hat was the most interesting part of the portrait.

He was too independent and too disinterested to conceal his feelings. He once told me that when he was painting the Tsar’s portrait the Tsarina exasperated him by continual criticisms; so much so that one day, losing all patience, he banded her his palette and brushes and suggested that she should finish the work herself.

Dat beroemde portret is in de oktoberrevolutie verloren gegaan.
En wie was één van de moordenaars van de vreemde ‘Raspoutin’?
Juist, deze mooie flamboyante jongeman.