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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)

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Contributors

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

A woman thoughtfully gazes at a painting in a gallery. The painting depicts a lady in a blue skirt and white bonnet pouring liquid by a window.
Video
Join Ana Gasteyer, actress, comedian, and singer, for a look at one of her favorite Met objects.
April 23
A blonde, angel looking downwards with a green wing coming out of its back. The angel is draped in a white and red robe.
Explore the biography of the famed Renaissance artist through a selection of extraordinary works.
Caroline Elenowitz-Hess
March 23
Detail of a painting of a pale-faced woman with pink cheeks and light brown hair against a dark background.
Learn about the artist’s subversive and probing representations of herself and others.
Patricia G. Berman
March 13
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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