19th century russian art

Orest Adamovich Kiprensky was a leading Russian portraitist in the Age of Romanticism. His most familiar work is probably his portrait of Alexander Pushkin (), which prompted the poet to remark that the mirror flatters me.

He was raised in the family of Adam Shvalber, a serf. Although Kiprensky was born a serf, he was released from the serfdom upon his birth and later his father helped him to enter a boarding school at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg in (when Orest was only six years old).

He studied at the boarding school and the Academy itself until He lived at the Academy for three more years as a pensioner to fulfill requirements necessary to win the Major Gold medal. Winning the first prize for his work Prince Dmitri Donskoi after the Battle of Kulikovo () enabled the young artist to go abroad to study art in Europe.

A year before his graduation, in , he painted the portrait of Adam Shvalber, his foster father (), which was a great success.

The portrait so impressed his contemporaries, that later members of the Naples Academy of Arts took it for the painting by some Old Master – Rubens or van Dyck.

Kiprensky portrait of pushkin biography youtube In other projects. Schlegel F. Among his most bizarre antics there is, perhaps, the most outrageous occasion when during a military parade in , Kiprensky fell on his knees before Emperor Paul I and started pleading to allow him to join the armed forces. Pavel Svinyin -

Kiprensky had to ask the members of the Imperial Academy of Arts for letters supporting his authorship. After that, Kiprensky lived in Moscow (), Tver , Saint Petersburg , in – he lived in Rome and Napoli. In Italy he met a local girl Anne Maria Falcucci (Mariucci), to whom he became attached. He bought her from her dissolute family and employed as his ward.

On leaving Italy, he sent her to a Roman Catholic convent.

In , Kiprensky came back to Italy, as he got a letter from his friend Samuel Halberg, informing him that they had lost track of Mariucci. Kiprensky found Mariucci, who had been transferred to another convent. In he eventually married her.

Kiprensky portrait of pushkin biography John Lewis Krimmel - Kiprensky had to ask the members of the Imperial Academy of Arts for letters supporting his authorship. So, in Kiprensky returned home. David Cox -

He had to convert into Roman Catholicism for this marriage to happen. He died by pneumonia in Rome later that year. He is buried in the church of SantAndrea delle Fratte.

Nationality

Russian

Genres

Romanticism

Years

-

Wikipedia

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