The Russian School of Painting
nent: Andrey Matvyeyev and Ivan Nikitin; but fate favoured neither them nor their works. So few of these have reached us that it is difficult to form a correct judgment about their authors. Andrey Matvyeyev, who returned home in 1727, lived ten years longer, and died in the prime of his life and talent. He received his artistic education in the Netherlands, under the guidance of Moor and Schoor. Several authentic works of his bear witness to the fact that he had mastered the technical methods of Western painting, but they are too few to give an idea of his personality as an artist. His portraits of Prince and Princess Golytzin, kept in the estate Petrovskoye (near Moscow), show fair draughtsmanship and a skilful touch. But what an immeasurable distance between them and the works of his contemporaries: Largilliere, Nattier, Rigaud, Troost and others. Matvyeyev's picture in Stroganov Palace, with its smooth painting and schematic composition, reminds one of a poor imitation of van der Werff; as to his icons in the Cathedrals of St. Peter and St. Paul and in the Church of St. Simeon, it is impossible to judge them, as they have been retouched in later times.
His unfinished portrait of himself and his wife, donated by the artist's son to the Academy of Arts, stands by itself in the common-place painting of the early eighteenth century; it is distinguished by a pro-
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