Vladimir Lukich Borovikovsky
(Russian: July 24 O.S. 1757 - April 6 O.S. 1825) was a Ukrainian-born painter who dominated Russian portraiture at the turn of the 19th century.
ladimir Borovikovsky was born dymyr Borovyk in Myrhorod (now Ukraine) on July 24, 1757. His father, Luka Borovyk was a Ukrainian Cossack and an amateur icon painter. According to the family tradition, all four of Borovyk's sons served in Myrhorod regiment, but Volodymyr retired early at the rank of poruchik and devoted his life to art mostly icon painting for local churches.
Borovikovsky may have lived the remainder his life as an amateur painter in a provincial town if not for an unexpected event. His friend Vasyl Kapnist was preparing an accommodation for Empress Catherine II in Kremenchuk during her travel to newly conquered Crimea. Kapnist asked Borovikovsky to paint two allegoric paintings (Peter I of Russia and Catherine II as peasants sowing seeds and Catherine II as a Minerva) for her rooms. The paintings so pleased the Empress that she requested that the painter move to Saint Petersburg.
Portrait of Maria Lopukhina, 1797After September 1788 Borovikovsky lived in Saint Petersburg where he changed his surname from the Cossack "Borovyk" to the more aristocratic-sounding "Borovikovsky". For his first ten years in Saint Petersburg, he lived in the house of the poet, architect, musician and art theorist, Prince Nikolay Lvov, whose ideas strongly influenced Borovikovsky's art. At 30-years-old, he was too old to attend Imperial Academy of Arts, so he took private lessons from Dmitry Levitzky and later from Austrian painter Johann Baptist Lampi. Related Paintings of Vladimir Lukich Borovikovsky :. | Portrait of Alexandr Borisovich Kurakin | Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow | Portrait of prince Alexander Kurakine | Portrait of count G.G. Kushelev with children | Borovikovskiy PtDerzhavnoy | Related Artists: Lajos Bruckpainted Hazateres in 1910 Antoni Piotrowski (Bulgarian: Antoni Pyotrovski; 1853-1924) was a Polish Romanticist and Realist painter.
Piotrowski was born in Nietulisko Duże in 1853 near Kunew, then in the Russian Empire (today in Poland), to a sheet iron worker. From 1869 on, Piotrowski studied painting with professor Wojciech Gerson. From 1875 to 1877 he was tutored in Munich by Wilhelm Lindenschmit the Younger and from 1877 to 1879 his teacher was Jan Matejko of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakew.
In 1879, Piotrowski arrived to the newly-liberated Principality of Bulgaria as a correspondent of the British issues The Graphic and The Illustrated London News and the French Illustration and Le Monde Illustre. He moved to Paris only to return to Bulgaria in 1885 to join the Serbo-Bulgarian War as a Bulgarian volunteer. For his merits during the fighting he was honoured with an Order of Bravery.
During his time in the Bulgarian Army Piotrowski painted the Battle of Slivnitsa, the storming of Tsaribrod and the Bulgarian entry in Pirot. All his nine military works were purchased by the Bulgarian state and are exhibited in the National Museum of Military History in Sofia. He also published graphics from the war in various Western European illustrated issues. Among his works were also portraits of Bulgarian princes (knyaze) Alexander of Battenberg and Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; Piotrowski was awarded an Order of Civil Merit by the latter.
Piotrowski returned to Bulgaria in 1889: he visited Batak and painted his epic canvas The Batak Massacre. This painting of his won an award at the Plovdiv Fair in 1892. In 1900 Piotrowski returned to Poland and settled in Warsaw. John Charlton1849-1917
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