How the details of this bust revealed its subject—a forgotten world leader

"It’s a great mystery: who he is, who made it."

"It was a great mystery: who he is, who made it."

Curator Wolfram Koeppe on a sculpture of Alexander Danilovich Menshikov by an unknown artist.

Explore this object:
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/208538

Throughout 2013, The Met invited curators from across the Museum to each talk about one artwork that changed the way they see the world.

Photography by Mark Morosse

Rights & Permissions
No 2: The Old Castle (II vechio castello) and No 4: Bydlo (A Polish Ox-cart)
from Pictures from an Exhibition by Musorgsky played by Nikolai Demidenko
courtesy of Hyperion Records Ltd, London (www.hyperion-records.co.uk)

Subscribe for new content from The Met: https://www.youtube.com/user/metmuseum?sub_confirmation=1

#TheMet #ArtExplained #Art


Contributors

Wolfram Koeppe
Marina Kellen French Senior Curator, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Pop art portrait of a woman with bright orange hair, turquoise skin, pink lips, and lavender eyeshadow on a pink background.
How do works in The Met collection trace the shifting associations of blonde glamour in Western art?
Lynda Nead
February 2
A small wooden carved box featuring figures and a tree in relief.
The author of After Sappho offers a queer feminist reading of Eve and the serpent, reimagining sin as likeness, desire, and bodies transcending gender and species.
Selby Wynn Schwartz
January 9
A close-up detail of a painted face rendered in muted green, blue, and gray tones.
Author Leena Krohn reflects on Helene Schjerfbeck’s portrait of Sigrid Nyberg.
Leena Krohn
December 18, 2025
More in:Art ExplainedPortraiturePolitics

A slider containing 1 items.
Press the down key to skip to the last item.
Alexander Danilovich Menshikov (1673–1729), Unknown Artist, Swiss, Austrian, or German, active Russia ca. 1703–4, Red pine (pinus sylvestris), with wrought-iron clips, Russian, St. Petersburg
Unknown
probably shortly before 1704