Dmitry Levitzky

Template:Short description Template:Family name hatnote Template:More citations needed Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox artist Dmitry Grigoryevich Levitzky or Levitsky (Template:Langx; Template:Langx; 24 May [O.S. 13 May] 1735 – 16 April [O.S. 4 April] 1822) was a Russian portrait painter and academician.

Biography

He was born to Template:Ill, a priest, who was also an amateur painter and engraver and served as his first art teacher. In 1758, he moved to Saint Petersburg to become a pupil of the Russian artist Aleksey Antropov, who had been in Kiev to create decorative paintings at the Cathedral of St Andrew. He also studied with Giuseppe Valeriani. In 1764, he established himself as a free-lance artist.

In 1770, Levitzky became famous after the exhibition of six of his portraits in the Imperial Academy of Arts; notably for a portrait of the architect Alexander Kokorinov. As a result, he was named an Academician and appointed Professor of the portrait painting class at the Academy. He remained in this position until 1788, when he resigned, citing an eye disease, although it may have been for political reasons. In 1807, he was invited back to the Academy by Tsar Alexander I. One of his best known students was Vladimir Borovikovsky.

In 1772–1776 Levitzky worked on a series of portraits of the pupils of the privileged women's establishment, the Smolny Institute for Young Ladies, in St. Petersburg. They were commissioned by Catherine II. The girls are depicted performing dances, music, and plays. His portrait of Denis Diderot is said to be the only one the philosopher liked.

Though Levitzky had many commissions, they were, in most cases, poorly paid, and the painter died in poverty in 1822.

Works

• Count Artemiy Vorontsov (late 1780s)
  Count Artemiy Vorontsov (late 1780s)
• Architect Alexander Kokorinov, Director and First Rector of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1769)
  Architect Alexander Kokorinov, Director and First Rector of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1769)
• Prokofiy Demidov (1773)
  Prokofiy Demidov (1773)
• E. N. Khruschova and Princess E. N. Khovanskaya (1773)
  E. N. Khruschova and Princess E. N. Khovanskaya (1773)
• Ekaterina Nelidova (1773)
  Ekaterina Nelidova (1773)
• Alexander Lanskoy, Aide-de-camp to the Empress (1782)
  Alexander Lanskoy, Aide-de-camp to the Empress (1782)
• Catherine II as Legislator in the Temple of the Goddess of Justice (1783)
  Catherine II as Legislator in the Temple of the Goddess of Justice (1783)
• Yekaterina Romanovna Vorontsova-Dashkova (1784)
  Yekaterina Romanovna Vorontsova-Dashkova (1784)
• Portrait of General Iosif Igelström (1790)
  Portrait of General Iosif Igelström (1790)
• Nikolay Novikov (1797)
  Nikolay Novikov (1797)

Further reading

• Dmitry Grigoryevich Levitsky @ the Encyclopedia Krugosvet

External links

• More works by Levitzky @ ArtNet
• Levitsky in Olga's gallery