Bogdan Saltanov

Bogdan (Ivan) Ievlevich Saltanov
Cross of Kiy of the Crucifix church in Moscow Kremlin. 1670s
Born	1630s New Julfa
Died	1703 Moscow
Nationality	Persia, Russia
Known for	Icons, engravings, interior decoration
Patron(s)	Alexis I of Russia

Bogdan Saltanov (Russian: Богдан Салтанов; 1630s – 1703), also known as Ivan Ievlevich Saltanov, was a Persian-born Armenian painter at the court of Alexis I of Russia and his successors. Saltanov headed the painting workshop of the Kremlin Armoury from 1686. Saltanov's legacy include Orthodox icons for church and secular use, illuminated manuscripts, secular parsuna portraits including the portraits of Stepan Razin and Feodor III of Russia as a young man (see Attribution problem).

Igor Grabar considered Saltanov and his contemporaries Ivan Bezmin and Vasily Poznansky as the fourth and the last class of Simon Ushakov school, an "extreme left wing in the history of Russian icon art, the Jacobins whose art departed with the last traces of an already evaporated tradition" (Russian: Они являются “крайней левой” в истории русской иконописи ушаковской эпохи — теми якобинцами, в искусстве которых исчезают последние следы и без того уже довольно призрачной традиции). Studies of the 1990s–2000s partially refute this statement, asserting that Saltanov was substantially independent of Ushakov and his legacy.

In 1660 Zakar Sagradov, an Armenian trader from New Julfa, serving as an envoy of the Shah of Persia, delivered the Shah's gifts to Tsar Alexis. The package included, among other items, an engraved copper board depicting the Last Supper. The board aroused interest of the tsar who instructed Sagradov to return to Persia and hire the engraver into tsar's service. Muscovite artists were only experimenting with engravings on metal, and the tsar needed a professional to set up the new craft. The copper board was, most likely, a Western European product, however, Sagradov responded that he can hire at least an apprentice of the author. Six years later Saltanov, "the apprentice", arrived in Moscow with his brother, joined the staff of the Armoury and received a high salary. He was treated as a foreign noble, an honor rarely issued without reason. The artist converted to Russian Orthodoxy eight years later: conversion was equivalent to an oath of loyalty to the Romanovs and earned him the honors of a Russian noble, but also prevented the artist from ever leaving Russia. His brother, Stepan Saltanov, also became a Russian noble, a treasurer of the Armoury and a founder of the Saltanov family.