Proceedings of the Estonian Art Museum 2

The exhibition “Portraits of Russian Tsars” in Kadriorg Art Museum (2006–2007), and the accompanying catalogue, clearly showed how many “blank spots” there still are in the field of study of the portraits of rulers located in Estonia, their history and iconography. Despite the large scale of the first exhibition and the book dedicated to the portraits of Russian tsars, these activities were more like milestones, and posed questions for future study, rather than declaring a “final truth”. This issue was addressed in more detail 20. The spring conference “Portraits of Russian Rulers” held in May 2007, at which the presentations will be published in this collection of articles. In addition to the curators of the exhibition, several leading specialists from Moscow and St. Petersburg spoke at the conference, with whom cooperation is extremely important, as portraits in Estonia form part of Russian emperors’ iconography and are impossible to study without knowing official examples in Russia. make an important addition to the general iconography of the ruler.