Nikolai Sverchkov
Encyclopedia
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
—1898, Tsarskoye Selo
Tsarskoye Selo
Tsarskoye Selo is the town containing a former Russian residence of the imperial family and visiting nobility, located south from the center of St. Petersburg. It is now part of the town of Pushkin and of the World Heritage Site Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments.-History:In...
) was a Russian painter and engraver. His works begun to be exposed from 1844. Sverchkov's Return from the bear hunt, exhibited in 1863, was bought by Napoleon III. For this and two other paintings (The fair and The station) Sverchkov was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
. Coming back to Petersburg from abroad in 1864, Sverchkov painted The turn-out of tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
Aleksey Mikhailovich on the military parade of 1664 for Alexander II
Alexander II of Russia
Alexander II , also known as Alexander the Liberator was the Emperor of the Russian Empire from 3 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881...
.
Originally Sverchkov served in the economic department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs
Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs
The Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del is the interior ministry of Russia. Its predecessor was founded in 1802 by Alexander I in Imperial Russia...
. In 1839 he sent his first paintings to academical exhibition and two years later left his governmental office. An animal painter, Sverchkov started his creative work at the Khrenovskiy and Chesmenskiy state stud
Orlov Trotter
The Orlov Trotter is a horse breed with a hereditary fast trot, noted for its outstanding speed and stamina. It is the most famous Russian horse. The breed was developed in Russia in the late 18th century by Count Alexei Orlov at his Khrenovskoy Stud farm near the town of Bobrov...
farms. In 1844 Sverchkov did several lithographs and by the end of 1840s has painted three portraits. In 1852 Sverchkov was awarded the title of academician of "the folk genre". The 1850s were marked by his friendship with Nikolai Nekrasov, in whose Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located northeast of Moscow. The historical part of the city, a World Heritage Site, is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl Rivers. It is one of the Golden Ring cities, a group of historic cities...
manor of Karabikha
Karabikha
Karabikha is a village in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located 15 kilometers to the south of Yaroslavl center. The great Russian poet Nikolay Nekrasov lived and worked there for some time. There is now a Nekrasov museum in the village....
Sverchkov spent much of his time.