The remote and mountainous region of the Caucasus was seldom visited by western travellers in the nineteenth century. Gagarin travelled there in the 1840s, and his studies of its people and scenery were later published as lithographs in two volumes, Le Caucase pittoresque (1845-59) and Scenes, paysages, moeurs et costumes du Caucase (1850-7), both with accompanying text by Count Ernest van Stackelberg. The man shown here appeared in the latter publication, and illustrates superbly Gagarin's accurate observation of the colourful costumes worn by the local people.

The son of the Russian ambassador to Rome, Gagarin studied art in Italy. He returned to St Petersburg in 1832, and later in the decade went on diplomatic missions to Munich and Constantinople. After visiting the Caucasus he became a respected member of the artistic establishment in St Petersburg, serving as Vice-President of its Academy of Fine Arts, 1859-79.