Nikolai
Vasilyevich Nevrev

Russia • 1830−1904

Biography and information

Born in 1830 in Moscow merchant family. In his youth he earned his living as a clerk. In 1851-1855 visited the newly opened Moscow school of painting, sculpture and architecture (MUZHVZ), doing it under the guidance of historical and genre painter M. I. Scotti. He was a member of the "Itinerants society" (1881). Lived mainly in Moscow.

 

Initially worked as a portrait painter. Was known primarily as a genre painter.

Russian painter, master of genre, its predecessor, and a characteristic representative of the art "Wanderers".

 

Born in 1830 in Moscow merchant family. In his youth he earned his living as a clerk. In 1851-1855 visited the newly opened Moscow school of painting, sculpture and architecture (MUZHVZ), doing it under the guidance of historical and genre painter M. I. Scotti. He was a member of the "Itinerants society" (1881). Lived mainly in Moscow.

 

Initially worked as a portraitist ("M. I. Tretyakova," the 1860-ies, TG). His romantic credo is clearly expressed in "self-Portrait" (1863, GORM. TG) – with the hat, the shadow of which almost half conceals the face. Was known primarily as a genre painter. A number of his pictorial compositions close to the magazine cartoons ("Archdeacon proclaiming longevity at the merchant's birthday party", 1866; watercolour "Merchant-bacchanal", 1877; both works are in STG). However, in his most famous painting – "Bargain. From the recent past" (1866) proved himself as a fine master of the art of drama. The same spirit of "family settlements" (1888) and other works. Turning to the motives of the Russian past, has created more externally restrained, but also astrotometry of paintings that have enriched the tradition of romantic historicism ("Patriarch Nikon before the court on 1 Dec 1666", 1885, was in the Kiev Museum of Russian art lost during the Second world war, "Princess P. G. Yusupova before tonsure", 1886, Tretyakov gallery; "Yaroslav the Wise admonishes his daughter Anna married French king Henry I", was the same place where Nikon, sharing its fate).

 

In later years retired to his estate Lisconsin (near the station Tolochin, Vitebsk province), detecting the symptoms of nerve disease. Nevrev was a suicide in his estate 3 (16) may 1904.