Sergei Lvovich Levitsky
| Count Sergei Lvovich Levitsky | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Lvov-Lvitsky 1819 Moscow, Russia |
| Died | 1898 St. Petersburg, Russia |
| Nationality | Russian Empire |
| Education | Faculty of Law, Lomonosov Moscow State University |
| Known for | photographer |
| Movement | Photography |
| Awards | 1849, Paris Exposition of the Second Republic received first ever gold medal for landscape photography; in 1851, received first ever gold medal awarded for portrait photography |
| Patron(s) | Alexander II of Russia, Alexander III of Russia, Nicholas II of Russia, Napoleon III |
Count Sergei Lvovich Levitsky (Russian: Серге́й Львович Львов-Левицкий, 1819 – 1898), is considered one of the patriarchs of Russian photography and one of Europe's most important early photographic pioneers, inventors and innovators.
Of noble birth, he was a cousin of Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen (1812–1870), the writer and outstanding public figure; husband to Anna Antonovna and father to Rafail Sergeevich Levitsky (1847–1940), a Peredvizhniki artist who was court photographer to the ill fated family of Czar Nicholas II, the last emperor of Russia.
Sergei was born Lvov-Lvitsky in Moscow but later changed his name to Levitsky. At his parents request he attended and graduated (1839) from the Faculty of Law, Lomonosov Moscow State University and soon after served in the Russian civil service with the Ministry of the Interior, St. Petersburg. His ability to speak several languages allowed him to participate in a government commission to study the composition and therapeutic properties of mineral waters in the Caucasus.
On his mission there in 1843, accompanied by the chemist and botanist Julius Fritzsche, an associate of the chemistry department at the Emperor's Academy of Sciences. Levitsky made several daguerreotype views using his camera and the French-made Chevalier lens, which Fritzche had brought with him from Paris.
Daguerreotype, the first form of photography, was invented by Louis Daguerre in 1839. One problem was that it required exposure times as long as thirty minutes to create a portrait.
Levitsky's use of the 1840 Charles Chevalier-designed lens, known as the "Photographe à Verres Combinés" as it combined two cemented achromats; reduced the time needed to capture an image as it improved the camera's focusing ability. The lens brought speeds down to about f/5.6 for portrait work, and, as a bonus, the lens could be converted for use as a landscape lens.
In 1845, Levitsky travelled to Rome and Venice in Italy before undertaking a course in physics and chemistry at the Sorbonne in Paris but is not listed as working as a professional photographer. He had returned to Russia by 1849 when he opened a studio in St Petersburg.
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