Alexander Litovchenko

Portrait by Ivan Kramskoi, 1878.

Alexander Dmitrievich Litovchenko (Russian: Алекса́ндр Дми́триевич Лито́вченко; 1835, Kremenchuk - 28 June 1890, Saint Petersburg) was a Ukrainian-born Russian painter who specialized in depicting Muscovite Russia of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Biography

Litovchenko attended the Imperial Academy of Arts and, although criticised by his peers for rather stilted compositions, was awarded a lesser gold medal for his rendering of Charon transporting the souls of the dead across the Styx. Along with several other young painters, he challenged the spirit of academism that was prevalent at the Academy and in 1863 left it to become a freelance painter, joining the Peredvizhniki movement in 1876.

In 1868, Litovchenko was recognized as an academician for his picture of a falconeer serving at the court of Tsar Alexis (one of his several versions of the subject). Among his larger paintings, Ivan the Terrible Showing His Treasures to Jerome Horsey (1875) was purchased by the Tsar for the Alexander III Museum in St. Petersburg, and Tsar Alexis and Archbishop Nikon Venerating the Relics of Patriarch Philip (1886) was acquired by Pavel Tretyakov for his collection in Moscow (as were the finest of his portraits).

Litovchenko is also remembered as the author of seven murals in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow and a set of icons for the Crimean War memorial in Sevastopol.

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  Ambassador Horatio Calvucci sketching the favorite falcons of Tsar Alexis I (1889)
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  Tsar Alexis praying before the relics in the presence of Metropolitan Philip and Patriarch Nikon
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  Charon Carrying Souls Across the River Styx (1861)
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  Ivan the Terrible showing his treasures to Jerome Horsey, the English Ambassador (1875)

References

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (in Russian). 1906. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links

Media related to Alexander Litovchenko at Wikimedia Commons