person
Anna Ioannovna, Empress of Russia
Empress Anna Ioannovna
also: Anna Ioannovna, Empress Anna
Empress of Russia, r. 1730-1740, referenced here via a photograph -- kept on the windowsill of Anton's Moscow bedroom -- of "Jesters at the Court of Anna Ivanovna," a stock subject of nineteenth-century Russian historical genre painting depicting the empress's court dwarfs and jesters (including the notorious 1740 "Ice Palace" wedding episode). A distinct historical figure from the eighteenth century, NOT to be conflated with the various contemporary women named "Anna Ivanovna" elsewhere in this corpus (e.g., Alexander Chekhov's common-law wife, or).
Reading notes
- To M. P. Chekhova, 28 April 1889. Sumy. §2 the photograph "Jesters at the Court of Anna Ivanovna"
"Anna Ivanovna" here is the Russian empress Anna Ioannovna (r. 1730-1740), not any contemporary of the Chekhov family; her court jesters and dwarfs, and episodes such as the 1740 "Ice Palace" wedding she staged for two of them, were a stock subject of nineteenth-century Russian historical genre painting. The photograph -- kept on the windowsill of Anton's Moscow bedroom -- is most likely a reproduction of such a painting; the source does not name the artist or specific work. Explicitly distinguished here from the unrelated (Alexander Chekhov's common-law wife) and elsewhere in this corpus, all of whom share only the given name and patronymic by coincidence.