Mikhail Ivanovich Belsky
Mikhail Ivanovich Belsky (Russian: Михаил Иванович Бельский; 1753, St. Petersburg - 29 May 1794, St. Petersburg) was a Russian Classical painter, commonly known for his portraits made during Catherine the Great's reign.
Biography
![](../I/%D0%91%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%82%D0%BD%D1%8F%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_(1788).jpg.webp)
Dmitry Bortniansky (1788)
His father, Ivan Ivanovich Belsky, was a history painter and Academician at the Imperial Academy of Arts.[1] In 1770, the Academy awarded him a silver medal for his outstanding classwork. His primary instructors there were Anton Losenko and Dmitry Levitzky.[2]
In 1773, together with the engraver, Gavriil Skorodumov, he was awarded a travel grant to study abroad, in London. They received 300 Rubles per year, and letters of recommendation.[2] When they arrived, they were placed under the patronage of Count Alexei Musin-Pushkin, the Russian Envoy. Classes at the Royal Academy of Arts were open to them, they were able to copy the Old Masters, attend lectures and travel throughout the provinces.[2]
In 1776, they were scheduled to continue their travels, but Skorodumov chose to remain in London. Belsky went to Paris and became a student of Jean-Baptiste Greuze in 1780, at his father's expense.[2]
Very little is known of his life beyond that point, except that he returned to Russia and worked as a portrait painter in St. Petersburg. Few of his paintings have been identified with any certainty and most are believed to be in the possession of their subject's families.
References
- Profile of М. I. Belsky @ the Russian Academy of Sciences.
- Biography from the Русский биографический словарь @ Russian WikiSource
Further reading
- Primary sources
- Petrov, P. N. (1864). Сборник материалов для истории Императорской Санкт-Петербургской академии художеств за сто лет ее существования (in Russian). Vol. 1. Saint Petersburg: Gogenfelden and Co. pp. 126, 132, 133, 296, 297. OCLC 676719786.
- Scholarly notes
- Cross, Anthony Glenn (1980). "By the Banks of the Thames": Russians in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Newtonville, Mass.: Oriental Research Partners. pp. 211, 212, 213, 217, 218, 219, 306. ISBN 0-89250-085-9. OCLC 1148189047 – via the Internet Archive.
- Moiseeva, S. V., ed. (2019). Художники Бельские (exhibition catalogue) (in Russian). Saint Petersburg: Palace Editions. ISBN 978-5-93332-666-3. OCLC 1197715496.
- Nikulina, N. I. (May 1969). "«Портрет учителя с учениками» и его автор". Iskusstvo (in Russian). Moscow: Iskusstvo: 51–54.
- Reference books