Наталья Куракина

Princess Natalia Ivanovna Kurakina née Golovina was a Russian composer, singer, and harpist in the 18th and 19th centuries. In her lifetime, Kurakina has 45 songs attributed to her and at the time of this writing, only one other Russian composer, Osip Antonovich Kozlovsky (1757-1831), is known to have more. In 1795, a collection of eight of her songs, Huit romances composees et arangees pour la harpe, was published by Breitkopf. Additionally she was published by Gerstenberg and Dittmar which were other major music publishers in this time. Her compositions were written specifically for the salon environment and thus were written for either piano or harp accompaniment and voice. The Portrait of the princess, by the celebrated artist Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun and held by the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, shows her holding an album of music which could possibly be her own.