Russian Painter, ca.1735-1808 Fyodor Stepanovich Rokotov (Fedor Rokotov) (Russian: ?????????? ??????????́?????????? ????́??????????) (1736?C1809) was a distinguished Russian painter who specialized in portraits. Fyodor Rokotov was born into a family of peasant serfs, belonging to the Repnins. Much in his biography is obscure. He studied art in Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts. After buying back his freedom in the end of 1750s he became established as a fashionable painter. In 1765, Rokotov was elected an Academician, but he did not work as a professor in the Academy long, because it interfered with his painting. He returned to Moscow in 1765, where he lived for the rest of his life. He had a lot of commissions there, becoming one of the best portrait painters of his time. Among his best-known portraits are Portrait of Alexandra Struyskaya (1772), sometimes called the Russian Mona Lisa and admittedly the most celebrated piece of the 18th-century Russian painting; Portrait of Countess Elisabeth Santi (1785), and Lady in a Pink Dress (1770s, illustration, right). Rokotov avoided painting formal portraits with lots of adornments and decorations. Instead he was one of the first Russian painters advancing a psychological portrait with attention to optical and atmospheric effects.  Related Paintings of Fedor Rokotov :. | Anna Yuryevna Kvashnina Samarina. | Lady in a White Cap. | Portrait of Catherine II | Catherine II, | Portrait of Anna Yuryevna Kvashnina Samarina |
Related Artists:
Paul Huet
French Painter, 1804-1869
Joseph-Desire Court
a painter of historical subjects and portraits, was born at Rouen in 1797. He became a pupil at the École des Beaux-Arts under Gros, and after carrying off the principal honours there pursued his studies still further at Rome. High expectations were formed of him when he exhibited in 1827 'The Death of Caesar,' a work manifesting earnest thought, and a conscientious handling of the facts of history. This is now preserved in the Louvre. Having shown himself in this and other works a vigorous painter, capable of seizing a subject with a masterly grasp, and having also in the region of portrait painting proved himself an artist of no common merit, he eventually dissipated his talents in the production of a series of empty official pictures painted by order of Louis Philippe. He died in Paris in 1865. The Bordeaux Museum has a portrait of Henri Fonfrede by him; that of Lyons, a 'Scene in the Deluge'; that of Rouen,
Laurent de la Hyre
1606-1656 French Laurent de la Hyre Galleries He became a pupil of Georges Lallemand and studied the works of Primaticcio at Fontainebleau, but never visited Italy. La Hyre is associated with the transitional period before the introduction of the French Baroque by Simon Vouet. His picture of Pope Nicholas V opening the crypt in which he discovers the corpse of St. Francis of Assisi standing (located at the Louvre) was executed in 1630 for the Capuchin friars of the Marais; its gravity and sobriety seems to have been influential for the next generation of French painters, particularly Eustache Le Sueur. The Louvre contains eight other works, and paintings by La Hyre are in the museums of Strasburg, Rouen and Le Mans. Laurent de La Hyre: Perspective (drawing).His drawings, of which the British Museum possesses a fine example, Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, are treated as seriously as his paintings, and sometimes show simplicity and dignity of effect. The example of the Capuchins, for whom he executed several other works in Paris, Rouen and Fecamp, was followed by the goldsmith's company, for whom he produced in 1635 St. Peter healing the Sick (Louvre) and the Conversion of St Paul in 1637. In 1646, with eleven other artists, he founded the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Richelieu called La Hyre to the Palais Royal; Pierre S??guier, Gedeon Tallemant des R??aux and many others entrusted him with important works of decoration; for the Gobelins he designed a series of large compositions. La Hyre painted also a great number of portraits, and in 1654 united in one work for the town-hall of Paris those of the principal dignitaries of the municipality.