Russian Rococo Era Painter , 1727/1729-1802 Russian painter and teacher. He came from a family of serfs, belonging to the Counts Sheremetev, that produced several painters and architects. In about 1746-7 he was a pupil of Georg Christoph Grooth (1716-49), who painted portraits of the Sheremetev family. With Grooth, Argunov worked on the decoration of the court church at Tsarskoye Selo (now Pushkin). A full-length icon of St John of Damascus (1749; Pushkin, Pal.-Mus.), in Rococo style, is distinguished by its secular, decorative character. The Dying Cleopatra (1750; Moscow, Tret'yakov Gal.) is typical of Rococo decorative painting of the mid-18th century, with its striking combination of light, soft tones. Argunov subsequently painted in a quite different style, mainly producing portraits, of which about 60 are known. Among the first of these are pendant portraits of Ivan Lobanov-Rostovsky and his wife (1750 and 1754; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.), in which the sitters are idealized, as in ceremonial court portraits.   Related Paintings of Ivan Argunov :. | Self-portrait | Portrait of an Unknown Woman in Russian Costume | Portrait of Princess Ekaterina Alexandrovna Lobanova-Rostovskaya, 1754 | Portrait of Peasant Woman in Russian Costume | Portrait of Countess Tolstaya, nee Lopukhina |
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Thomas Guest
British artist 1754-1818
GRECO, El
Greek-born Spanish Mannerist Painter, 1541-1614 Greek painter, designer and engraver, active in Italy and Spain. One of the most original and interesting painters of 16th-century Europe, he transformed the Byzantine style of his early paintings into another, wholly Western manner. He was active in his native Crete, in Venice and Rome, and, during the second half of his life, in Toledo. He was renowned in his lifetime for his originality and extravagance and provides one of the most curious examples of the oscillations of taste in the evaluation of a painter,
Charles-Amedee-Philippe van Loo
(25 August 1719 -15 November 1795) was a French painter of allegorical scenes and portraits. He studied under his father, the painter Jean-Baptiste van Loo, at Turin and Rome, where in 1738 he won the Prix de Rome, then at Aix-en-Provence, before returning to Paris in 1745. He was invited to join the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1747, and that year he married his cousin Marie-Marguerite Lebrun, daughter of the painter Michel Lebrun (died 1753). Among his brothers were the painters François van Loo (1708-1732) and Louis-Michel van Loo (1707-1771).