Part 3: The Little Man in Uniform: A Stern Façade and a Child's Heart
Before us is an eight-year-old boy in the dress uniform of the Preobrazhensky Life Guards Regiment, striking a formal and proud pose. This regiment was one of the oldest and most prestigious guards infantry units of the Russian Imperial Army, founded by Peter the Great himself. His still-childish face is frozen in an expression of stern gravity, dignity, and even aloofness. The boy's hair, like his sister's, is powdered in keeping with the fashion of the time. In this portrait, we also see a fusion of features from the Russian medieval tradition and the brilliance of formal Western European portraiture.

Wilhelm Georg Fermor would later go on to serve in that very elite Preobrazhensky Life Guards Regiment and retired with the rank of Brigadier.

The officer married the daughter of Colonel Ludolf von Albrecht, and through this family line, the portraits were passed down from generation to generation. In 1907, these paired children's portraits were acquired by the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

In their power and the warmth of their loving depiction of the children, the images of Sarra Eleonora and her brother Wilhelm Georg Fermor stand as the most enchanting child portraits of the mid-18th century.

Pictured above: Portrait of Wilhelm Georg Fermor by the Russian artist Ivan Vishnyakov.

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