Above right: this board announced Potemkin's death and listed all his titles during his lying-in-state in October 1791. The author found it in the Golia Monastery in Jassy (Romania) behind a piano. Middle right: his coffin in the tomb beneath the Church.
The Bolsheviks stole the icons ...
Below right: the trapdoor in St Catherine's in
Kherson (Ukraine) leading to Potemkin's tomb.
The ruined church in Potemkin's home village of Chizhova, near Smolensk in Russia where he was christened, learned to read, and where his heart is probably buried.
Daria Potemkina, the Prince's mother who disapproved of his affairs with his nieces and told him so. He tossed her letters into the fire ...
Potemkin aged around 3 5 at the height of his passionate love affair with Catherine, wearing the gold breastplates and uniform of the Captain of the elite Chevalier-Gardes, who stood watch over the Empress's own apartments.
The Empress Elisabeth: statuesque, blue-eyed, blonde, shrewd and ruthless, a true daughter of Peter the Great with a taste for men, dresses, transvestite balls, and Orthodox piety. After being presented to her, young Potemkin lost interest in his studies ...
The Grand Duchess Catherine with her gawky husband Peter and their son Paul. She loathed her husband - and Paul was probably her son by Serge Saltykov, her first lover.
Field-Marshal Peter Rumiantsev in command at the Battle of Kagul against the Turks in 1770. General Potemkin's exploits in this campaign made him a war hero.
The Orlov brothers who helped Catherine seize power. Good-natured Grigory (on the left) was her lover for twelve years. Brutal, scarfaced Alexei (on the right) helped murder Peter III and won the naval battle of Chesme against the Turks. Potemkin broke their influence.
A fanciful print of Catherine and Potemkin playing cards in her boudoir. In fact, they played usually in the Little Hermitage where the Empress made special rules for him - 'Do not break or chew anything' - because he liked to wander in, chewing a radish and wearing nothing but a dressing-gown and a pink bandanna.
Alexander Lanskoy, Catherine's lover 1780-1784. He was gentle, affectionate and unambitious. She was happiest with him. When he died, Potemkin rushed to console her, and courtiers heard them howling together with grief.
Count Alexander Dmitriyev- Mamonov, Catherine's penultimate favourite and kinsman of Potemkin. She nicknamed him 'Redcoat'. He broke the Empress's heart by falling in love with a lady-in-waiting. 'Spit on him,' said Potemkin.
Potemkin's nieces were his family, friends and mistresses.
Left: PrincessVarvara Golitsyna - he fell in love with his flirtatious, strong- willed niece after the end of his affair with Catherine.
Right: Countess Ekaterina Skavronskaya with her daughter, the future Princess Bagratian. Potemkin's languid and beautiful niece - mistress, known as his 'angel', was his 'sultana-in-chief' for many years ...
Right: The Duchess of Kingston (also Countess of Bristol) made her name when she was still Elisabeth Chudleigh by appearing naked at the Venetian Ambassador's Ball in London in 1749. By the time this ageing and slatternly self-publicist visited Petersburg in a luxurious yacht in the 1770s, she was the most scandalous woman in England, having been found guilty of bigamy. Potemkin, who fancied her art treasures, arranged for an adjutant to become her lover.
Above left: Princess Tatiana Yusupova, the youngest niece who adored her uncle and wrote that court was very dull without him. Above right: Countess Ekaterina Samoilova, the Prince's brazen but fascinating niece-by-marriage. She seduced the young Comte de Damas during the Siege of Ochakov in 1788 - and was said to be Potemkin's mistress soon afterwards.
Above: the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II meets Catherine in a field near Kaidak during Potemkin's Crimean progress in 1787. That night, Joseph grumbled about Potemkin's cooking - yet he envied his vast achievements.
Left: Charles-Joseph, Prince de Ligne, socialite, Austrian soldier, renowned wit, 'jockey diplomatique', and the charmer of Europe, said that it took the materials for a hundred men to make one Potemkin.
Right: Potemkin's 'Matushka' and 'foster- nurse'. Catherine in the 1780s as she could be seen around the park at Tsarskoe Selo, in a bonnet and walking shoes with her beloved English greyhounds.
Below: Potemkin, in the helmet in the centre, leads the storming of the powerful Turkish fortress of Ochakov in 1788. The Turkish dead were so numerous, they were piled into pyramids on the ice where they froze solid.
Left: Count Alexander Suvorov, Russia's most brilliant general. Tough, cultured and wildly eccentric, he used to perform naked somersaults in front of his army every morning. 'You can't over-Suvorov Suvorov,' said Potemkin.
Below: The invitation to Potemkin's famous ball in the Taurida Palace on 28th April 1791. Catherine and Potemkin wept as he knelt at her feet to say goodbye.
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Princess Ekaterina Dolgorukaya, Potemkin's mistress near the end of his life. She was a paragon of aristocratic beauty with whom the Prince fell passionately in love, shocking observers by stroking her in public, building her an underground palace, ordering artillery salvoes to mark their caresses, and serving diamonds instead of pudding at her birthday ball.
Countess Sophia Potocka, the 'Beautiful Greek' and outstanding adventuress of the age, said to be the 'prettiest girl in Europe.' She was a spy and courtesan notorious for her 'beauty, vice and crimes' who was sold at the age of 14 by her mother, a fruit-seller in Constantinople, and became one of Potemkin's last mistresses before marrying the fabulously wealthy Polish Count Felix Potocki, seducing her step-son and building a huge fortune.
Prince Platon Zubov, Catherine the Great's last favourite who was vain, silly and politically inept. She nicknamed him 'Blackie'. Potemkin failed to remove him but, as Zubov admitted, Serenissimus remained Catherine's 'exacting husband.'