To his daughter's doctor. 1903

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910)
To his daughter's doctor. 1903
Cabinet photograph signed ('Léon Tolstoy') and inscribed to [Henri-Auguste] Widmer ('Au Docteur Widmer'), n.p., 28 June 1903.

The image by Scherer et Nabholz, Moscow, 142 x 102mm, mount 163 x 107mm. Inscribed in French on the image.

Portrait photograph inscribed to his daughter's doctor. Henri-Auguste Widmer (1853-1939) was a celebrated Swiss physician, specialising in digestive disorders. Tolstoy's favourite daughter, Maria (later Princess Obolenskaya, 1871-1906) had been treated by Widmer at his 'La Colline' clinic in Territet, near Montreux, in the spring of 1903. A surviving letter from her to Widmer in August that year reports on her health, and on her visit to her father on her way home, when no doubt he inscribed the present photograph: 'he said that I was looking very much better. We found him too in very good health and working a lot'. Maria was to die of pneumonia only three years later.

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