Russian courtiers

Catalogue number: Benesch 145.

The inscription on the drawing reads: those in disgrace are not shaved. The figures in the foreground have short hair and those in the background long, unkempt hair. This corresponded to the contemporary usage current at the court of Moscow that those noblemen who were in disgrace with the tsar had to grow their hair long to distinguish them clearly from the other Russian nobles, who always shaved their heads.