Antropov, Aleksei Petrovich

Born March 14 (25), 1716, in St. Petersburg; died there on June 12 (23), 1795. Painter; one of the first Russian portraitists.

Beginning in 1732, Antropov studied at the Office of Buildings in St. Petersburg with A. M. Matveev; beginning in 1739 he worked there in the painters’ detachment under I. Ia. Vishniakov. He worked on decorative paintings in palaces in St. Petersburg (1744–50) and its suburbs, in Moscow, and in the Andreevskii Cathedral in Kiev (1752–55). Associated to some extent with the parsuna (portrait) tradition, Antropov’s discerning character studies (including portraits of ataman F. I. Krasnoshchekov, 1761, the Russian Museum, Leningrad; Peter III, 1762, the Russian Museum and the Tret’iakov Gallery; and A. M. Izmailova, 1759, and A. V. Buturlin, 1763, both in the Tret’iakov Gallery) are outstanding for their directness, true images, decorative baroque splendor, and intense color.