[6] According to the family tradition, all four of Borovik's sons served as Cossacks in Mirgorod regiment, but Vladimir retired early at the rank of poruchik and devoted his life to art — mostly icon painting for local churches.

[7] His friend Vasily Kapnist was preparing an accommodation for Empress Catherine II in Kremenchuk during her travel to newly conquered Crimea.

At the age of 30 years, he was too old to attend St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts, so he took private lessons from Dmitry Levitzky and later from Austrian painter Johann Baptist Lampi.

His sitters included members of the imperial family, courtiers, generals, many aristocrats, and figures from the Russian artistic and literary worlds.

In a chamber, sentimental portrait with limited emotional expression, the master can convey the diversity of innermost feelings and experiences of the models portrayed.

Borovikovsky's ceremonial portraits show the brush's mastery of texture: the softness of velvet, the brilliance of gilded and satin vestments, and the sparkle of precious stones.

In his later years, Borovikovsky returned to religious painting, including several icons for the ongoing construction of the Kazan Cathedral and the iconostasis of the Church of Smolensk cemetery in St. Petersburg.