Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy

Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy
Count Fyodor Tolstoy by Sergey Zaryanko (1850)

Count Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy (Russian: Фёдор Петрович Толстой; 21 February 1783 – 25 April 1873) was a Russian artist who served as Vice-President of the Imperial Academy of Arts for forty years (1828–1868). His works — wax-reliefs, watercolours, medallions, and silhouettes — are distinguished by a cool detachment and spare and economical classicism.

Fyodor Tolstoy came from the Tolstoy family. His father Count Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy, governed a ministry of war supplies. Tolstoy early began to paint under the direction of his mother, Elizabeth Barbot-de-Marni. His first drawings, which are now stored in the Tretyakov Gallery, were made when he was 4 years old. At the age of nine he went to the foster care of his rich and influential cousin, Count Pyotr Aleksandrovich Tolstoy.

A year later, Fyodor entered the Jesuit College in Polotsk. Here, he studied painting, as well as the sciences. Upon his accession to the throne, Emperor Paul I summoned Pyotr Tolstoy to Saint Petersburg, and Fyodor Petrovich returned to his parents. At the same time, his father was fired, and the family's circumstances deteriorated.

From June 1798 to June 1802, Fyodor Petrovich was educated in the Naval Cadet Corps. After finishing, he continued his education under the direction of famous scientists. He studied mathematics, astronomy, political economy, zoology, archaeology and numismatics. He also frequented the riding academy, and became a dashing horseman.

In this time, without any supervision, he painted still lives, portraits and landscapes. After his father showed him a cameo depicting Napoleon, he started to learn the art of the medallist. Tolstoy visited the Imperial Academy of Arts' classes of plastic arts. One of his teachers was the most fashionable Russian portraitist of the time, Orest Kiprensky.