PORTRAIT OF COUNT ZOUBOFF.

Photos: Jonathan Russell.

  • Title(s): Portrait of Count Zouboff (this web site); Count Zouboff (1923 exhibition catalogue); Count Zubov (Tate).
  • Description: A man in a dark, broad-lapelled suit, white shirt and white shoes, sitting on a wicker chair, under an architectural feature with columns, background a hilly/mountainous landscape with blue sky with clouds.
  • Media: Oil on canvas (Tate).
  • Dimensions: “Support: 1934 x 1538 mm Frame: 2150x1755x115” (Tate).
  • Signature/date/other text: “ALS.” bottom right in red.
  • History:
    • c. 1908-1909 – Painted (Tate).
    • 1922 – Visible hanging on a wall in a photograph of Annie’s studio in The Sphere newspaper, 9 Dec 1922.
    • 1923 – Exhibited Manchester Art Gallery – Paintings by Mrs Swynnerton (visible in exhibition photographs; listed in catalogue).
    • 1931 – Exhibited The French Gallery, New Bond Street (The Graphic, 5 December 1931).
    • 1932 – “Presented by Messrs Wallis and Son 1932” (Tate; Henry Wallis was the proprietor of ‘The French Gallery,’ a commercial art dealership in London which closed in 1929 [reference?]).
    • 2018-2019 – Exhibited Manchester Art Gallery, 23 Feb 2018 to 6 Jan 2019.
    • Nov 2022 – Exhibited Tate Britain, November, “Spotlights: Annie Swynnerton” exhibition.
  • Location: Tate.

Count Zubov (Comte Valentin Platonovič Zubov, Валентин Платонович Зубов, 1884-1969) was a Russian aristocrat and art historian. He spent the winter of 1908-9 (aged about 25) in Italy and where Annie painted this portrait at Salsomaggiore Terme, a town in northern Italy. Zubov founded the Russian Institute of Art History in 1912.

Image: www.geni.com.

Notice by painting while on display Tate Britain, 2022:

Count Zubov c.1908-9 / Oil paint on canvas / This painting of the Russian scholar Valentin Platonovich Zubov [Валентин Платонович Зубов] (1884-1969) is one of Swynnerton's few portraits of men. She painted it in the north Italian spa town of Salsomaggiore Terme [north-western Italy, 50 miles/75 km NE of Genoa] … She had first travelled to Italy as a student in 1874. For many years afterwards she spent part of the year there. At the time of this portrait, Zubov was researching his doctorate, which may account for the papers strewn across the floor. He later established the institute of the History of the Arts in Saint Petersburg [Russian Institute of Art History].

Page last updated 21 May 2025.