Plaster portrait bust of Olga Peters by Shenda Amery, circa 1983.

A charismatic portrait bust of Olga Peters sculpted by Shenda Amery in 1983. Peters is the daughter of Svetlana Alliluyeva and the granddaughter of Joseph Stalin.

A bid for freedom

This sculpture is a portrait of Olga Peters as a teenager. Her mother, Svetlana Alliluyeva, was the daughter of Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union. It was a gift to Edward Heath from the sitter’s mother.

Alliluyeva was a translator and a lecturer at Moscow University. Despite her family connections, she was not a supporter of the Communist regime in Soviet Russia. In 1966, after the death of her husband, Kunwar Brajesh Singh, she was allowed to leave the Soviet Union to return his ashes to his native India. In New Delhi she outwitted the Soviet Embassy and defected to the United States.

She burnt her Soviet passport, married William Wesley Peters, and changed her name to Lana Peters. Olga was born shortly afterwards, in 1971. She has changed her name to Chrese Evans and lives in Portland, Oregon.

Making a model

In 1983, Alliluyeva commissioned the sculptor Shenda Amery to make a portrait of her daughter in bronze. They were living in England at the time.

This plaster version might have been used to create a mould to cast the bronze, or a maquette – a three-dimensional “sketch” made by the sculptor to draft out the composition.

Amery was the first sculptor to capture the likeness of Margaret Thatcher in 1981. She sculpted numerous other public figures including: John Major, Betty Boothroyd, the late King Hussein and Queen Noor of Jordan, and the writer Rabindranath Tagore.

Political or personal?

Exactly how this portrait bust of Olga Peters came to Arundells is still a mystery. We believe it was a gift from Alliluyeva to Heath. It is rumoured that it was given as thanks for Heath’s help with her defection from Russia, but there is no evidence to support that claim. It is more likely that they were socially connected, and this was a gift to a personal friend who was known for his artistic appreciation.