A picturesque image of the patroness of the first Siberian women’s educational institutions will be restored

IRKUTSK. In the Irkutsk Regional Art Museum. V.P. Sukachev embarked on the restoration of a large portrait of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna painted by Karl Reichel in Irkutsk in 1846.

The wife of Nicholas I - Alexandra Fedorovna (1798–1860) was a trustee of charitable institutions in Russia. In Irkutsk, under her auspices were the first female educational institutions in Siberia. The portrait of the empress until 1920 was in the building of the Maiden Institute of Eastern Siberia. The institution itself, conceived as a small copy of the Smolny Institute in St. Petersburg, was solemnly opened on July 1, 1845 - on the birthday of Alexandra Fedorovna. For six years, the institute was located in a wooden building, and in 1861 it moved to a new three-story stone building on the banks of the Angara River - today it houses the Physics Department of ISU. In the large hall of the second floor was a portrait of the empress. Among the young ladies there was a belief: if you pray in front of the portrait and Alexandra Fedorovna nods her head, then success in school is guaranteed.

During the restoration, the colorful layer of the portrait will be strengthened. The museum expects to return the painting to the exposition by May 2016, when the time for the exam will begin in schools. Then, modern schoolchildren will be able to turn to the image of the empress for help before exams.