The ABC Gallery has this about Grooth, "Georg Christoph Grooth was born in Stuttgart, Germany, and was trained
in Dresden. In 1741 he came to the Russian Empire, first he settled in
Revel (now Tallin, Lithuania). In 1743, Georg Grooth and Lucas Conrad
Pfandzelt,
also a German painter, were invited by Empress Elizaveta Petrovna to
supervise
and restore the Royal painting collections in St. Petersburg. Like other
foreign painters in Russia, Grooth had Russian pupils and among them was
Ivan Argunov (1729-1802), a talented painter. With Grooth, Argunov
worked
on the decoration of the court church at Tsarskoye Selo (now Pushkin). Georg Grooth died in St. Petersburg in 1749." The ABC Gallery article about Princess Kurakina can be found here.
Alexandra Kurakina's dress has a criss-cross bodice in this Grooth portrait.
Keywords: Grooth, Princess, Russian, long straight coiffure, hair jewelry, scoop neckline, modesty piece, lace, close sleeves, engageantes, vee waistline, criss-cross bodice, panniers, floral bodice ornament, earrings, robes