(1736 - 1809) 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.  Related Paintings of Fyodor Rokotov :. | Lady in a Pink Dress, | Portrait of Anna Yuryevna Kvashnina-Samarina | Portrait de Nikita A. Demidoff | Portrait of Daria Dmitriev Manova | Emperor Paul I as a Child |
Related Artists:
NAIVEU, Matthijs
Dutch painter (1647-1726) Dutch painter. He was the son of a wine merchant from Rotterdam and began his training with Abraham Toorenvliet (c. 1620-92), a glass painter and drawing master in Leiden. From 1667 to 1669 Naiveu was apprenticed to the Leiden 'Fine' painter Gerrit Dou, who received 100 guilders a year (an exceptionally high sum) for instructing Naiveu. In 1671 Naiveu entered the Leiden Guild of St Luke, of which he became the head in 1677 and again in 1678, the year in which he moved to Amsterdam, where he was later appointed hop inspector. This work did not prevent him producing a considerable number of paintings; the earliest known work by Naiveu is dated 1668, the latest 1721.
Henri De Braekeleer
Belgian Painter, 1840-1888 Belgian painter, was born at Antwerp. He was trained by his father, a genre painter, and his uncle, Baron Henri Leys, and devoted himself to scenes of everyday Antwerp life. The first pictures he exhibited, The Laundry (Van Cutsem collection, Brussels), and The Coppersmith's Workshop (Vleeshouwer collection, Antwerp), were shown. at the Antwerp exhibition in 1861. He received the gold medal at Brussels in 1872 for The Geographer and The Lesson (both in the Brussels gallery); the gold medal at Vienna in 1873 for The Painter's Studio and Grandmother's Birthday ; and the medal of honor at the Exposition Universelle at Amsterdam for The Pilot House. Among his more notable works are A Shoemaker (1862), A Tailor's Workroom (1863), A Gardener (1864, Antwerp gallery), Interior of a Church (1866), Interior, Flanders (1867), Woman Spinning (1869), Man Reading (1871), Theruedu Serment, Antwerp (1875), A Copperplate Printer, The Sailor's Return, The Man at the Window (Couteaux collection, Brussels), The Horn-blower (Couteaux collection), Man Retouching a Picture (Couteaux collection), The Potters (Marlier collection, Brussels), Staircase in the Hydraulic House at Antwerp (Marlier collection), and The Brewer's House at Antwerp (Marlier collection). The last, better known as A Man Sitting, is generally regarded as his masterpiece. As a lithographer and etcher, his work resembles that of Henri Leys.
Francesco Zuccarelli
Italian 1702-1788 1788). Italian painter and draughtsman, active in England. Zuccarelli training began in Florence, where he engraved the frescoes by Andrea del Sarto in SS Annunziata. He then studied in Rome under Paolo Anesi and learnt figure drawing from Giovanni Maria Morandi (1622-1717), although in this he never acquired any great skill. His earliest recorded paintings were Mary Magdalene and St Jerome (both untraced), which he contributed to the exhibition of the feast of St Luke in Florence in 1729. He also painted portraits. Around 1730 he moved to Venice and began painting landscapes exclusively. His interest in this field may have led to his becoming acquainted with the Welsh landscape painter Richard Wilson in 1750-51. Wilson painted a lively portrait of him (1751; London, Tate) in exchange for one of Zuccarellis landscapes. Zuccarelli avoided both the topographical type of Venetian view developed by Canaletto and the stormier landscapes of Marco Ricci, adopting instead a decorative landscape style of idealized Italian countryside. His subject-matter was usually unspecific rather than recognizably historical, biblical or mythological. For example, in the early 1740s he executed six paintings purporting to be scenes from the story of Jacob, but the paintings themselves bear few references to it (e.g. Landscape with Two Seated Women Embracing, 1743; Windsor Castle, Berks, Royal Col.).