About the book: 2003 / Fifty years that have passed since midshipman Tolstoy decisively changed his life, he, with his characteristic passion and obsession, devoted his beloved art. His works, full of sincerity and grace, citizenship and patriotism, greatness and harmony, made the name of Tolstoy famous both in Russia and in Europe. The drawings, bas-reliefs, watercolors, silhouettes, engravings he created, as well as pencil drawings by Orest Kiprensky or watercolors by Pyotr Sokolov, hung on the walls of mansions, were stored in boxes, and were decorations in albums, creating an artistic environment for the everyday life of the nobility of that time. It is no coincidence that Pushkin in the novel Eugene Onegin, this “encyclopedia of Russian life”, mentions the name of Tolstoy among the many great names of his contemporaries.