This extremely fine and rare portrait of a young noblewoman was executed in Rome and according to physiognomy depicts not an Italian but a Russian or Ukrainian noblewoman lived in these time in Rome. As it is known, at that time Rome was the town where many famous Russian artists, sculptors and writers lived and worked: Kiprensky, Bryulov, Gogol and others. The author of our painting Apollon MOKRITZKY was a friend of Gogol and a student of Bryulov, visited Rome in these time and painted  this portrait here in 1842.

Important Ukriainian-Russian portrait painter Apollon Nikolajewitsch Mokrtzky or Mokryzki or Mokrickji , in Russian: Аполлон Николаевич Мокрицкий , in Ukrainian: Аполлон Миколайович Мокрицький, was born in  1810 in Pyrjatyn, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire, now Ukraine,  died in 1870 in Moscow, Russian Empire, now Russian Federation.

His works are not to find on the international art market.  This is first his oil painting since years, which came for sale, we purchased  this beautifully work  on the sale of renowned Swiss auction house Schuler. 

Apollon MOKRITZKY  was born in Pyrjatyn, a small town in what is now the Ukrainian Oblast of Poltava. He studied painting at the grammar school in Nizhyn with Kapiton Stepanovich Pavlov (Капитон Степанович Павлов, 1792-1852) In 1830 he went to Saint Petersburg and studied there from September 1831 at the Imperial Academy of Art, among others, with Alexei Wenezianow and Karl Bryullow. He was a friend of the great writer Nikolai Gogol. At the St. Petersburg Art Academy he became friends with Taras Shevchenko and in 1838 actively participated in his ransom from serfdom.

From 1840 Mokrizki worked first in the Ukraine and went to Italy in 1841. From 1849 he was a professor at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. His students include Konstantin Makowski, Vasily Perov, Illarion Prjanischnikov and Ivan Schischkin. He died of pneumonia in Moscow at the age of 59.

His paintings are now in private collections and well-known museums - including the National Taras Shevchenko Museum and the National Art Museum of Ukraine in Kyiv, the Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg and other art museums in the Russian Federation.

Literature:  artist lexicons by SChU, 1973; Milner, 1993; Thieme/Becker; Saur.

Inscription: signed and dated 1842 Rome ( in Russian), lower lrft.

Technique: oil on canvas, original period gold-plated frame.

Measurements:  unframed w 19 1/3" x h 24" (49 x 61 cm) , framed w 25" x h 29 3/4" (63,5 x 75,5 cm).

Condition: very good.