Liudmila Markina, Larisa Bardovskaia

Brat’ia Groot: Nemetskie khudozhniki pri rossiiskom dvore: portretist i zveropisets (The Brothers Grooth [Georg Christoph and Johann Friedrich]: German painters at the Russian court, portraiture and animal paintings)

Moscow: Muzei-zapovednik Tsaritsyno / Art Volkhonka, 2017. Sewn pb. The exhibition of paintings from eight museums and private collections at Tsaritsyn Museum Preserve outside Moscow bring together for the first diverse material that demonstrates the breadth of the achievement of the two German artists working in the second half of the eighteenth century at the courts of Empress Elizabeth and Catherine the Great. Substantive articles, excellent reproductions, thorough entries on each work, and a bibliography constitute the first the full-scale exhibition catalogue published on two German painters. Georg Groot's portraits captured the chief figures of the mid eighteenth century Russian imperial family—especially vivid and probing are his paintings of the young princess from Germany who became Catherine the Great. In his portraits of various court figures he gives an accurate portrayal of his sitters' clothing and setting — the works are valuable as records of eighteenth-century interiors and dress. His brother Johann Groot painted scenes from nature, especially birds animals, which show both scientific accuracy and romantic pathos. Beside the significance of their own works, the artists were instrumental in creating a school of secular painting in Russia. 206 p., 24 cm, approx. 150 color illus., Rus. Item #2881

Price: $72.00