Rafail Levitsky
Rafail Levitsky | |
|---|---|
Portrait by Ilya Repin, Finnish National Gallery, 1878 | |
| Born | Rafail Sergeevich Levitsky 1847 St. Petersburg, Russian Empire |
| Died | 1940 (aged 92–93) Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| Education | Imperial Academy of Arts, Saint Petersburg |
| Known for | Painting, photographer |
| Movement | Peredvizhniki |
| Patron(s) | Alexander II of Russia Alexander III of Russia Nicholas II of Russia Napoleon III |
Rafail Sergeevich Levitsky (Russian: Рафаи́л Сергее́вич Леви́цкий; 1847–1940) was a Russian and Soviet genre, romantic, and impressionist artist who was an active participant in the Peredvizhniki (Itinerant) movement.
Rafail was born into a wealthy aristocratic family. He was married to Anna Vasilevna Olsufevsky. He was the second cousin of Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen (1812–1870), the writer and outstanding public figure; and son to Count Sergei Lvovich Levitsky (1819–1898), one of the founders of photography in Russia and Europe's early photographic pioneers.
He was friend to author Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828–1910) who visited and stayed with him and his wife on several occasions. His letters to his artist friend Vasily Dmitrievich Polenovare a personal account of many of the key figures in Russian art who exhibited during their lifetime.
Rafail Levitsky was also an art professor and a photographer, noted for his portraits of the ill-fated family of Czar Nicholas II, the last emperor of Russia.