IVAN NIKITIN

(1680s, Moscow – after February 9, 1742)

Brilliant Russian painter. Portrait artist. Nikitin’s biography, as well as the body of his artistic legacy, are still being studied and debated on. It is known for sure that he was the son of Moscow priest Nikita Nikitin, and the brother of the painter Roman Nikitin. It is possible that he began his education in the printing school affiliated with the Armoury in Moscow. He moved to St Petersburg in 1711. From 1716 to 1719, he studied in Italy, with his studies funded by Peter the Great. He visited Venice and studied in Florence under Tommaso Redi. In early 1720, Peter the Great made him return to Russia, and in 1721 he became a portrait painter and painted portraits of Peter the Great. In 1727, he married Maria Mamens, who was a lady-in-waiting of Catherine I, but they were soon divorced. In August 1732, he was arrested in Petersburg as a person related to the so-called “Rodyshevsky Case”, and charged with libel of the Vice-President of the Holy Governing Synod, Feofan Prokopovich. For five years he was under investigation and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. In 1737, he was sentenced to lashes and exile to Siberia. He was released and sent to Moscow by an order of the Secret Chancellery dated 25 January 1742. According to information provided by Pyotr Petrov, he died on the way from Siberia to Moscow.