Nikolai Utkin

Engraver, illustrator, teacher. Illegitimate son of the writer Mikhail Muravyov and a serf woman who was given in marriage to Muravyov’s chamberlain Ivan Utkin. Born in the house of his grandfather Nikita Muravyov in Tver (1780). Studied engraving under Antoine-Christophor Radigues and Ignaz Sebastian Klauber at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1785–1800). Awarded a minor silver medal (1796), major silver medal (1799), minor gold medal (1800) and a major gold medal (1802). Fellow of the Imperial Academy of Arts in Paris (1803–14), where he trained in Charles-Clément Bervic’s studio and worked on private commissions. Arrested (1812) and only released after the defeat of Napoleon (1814). Visited London with Tsar Alexander I (1814) and returned to St Petersburg (1814). Academician (1814), councillor (1818), professor (1831), professor emeritus (1840). Appointed engraver to Tsar Alexander I with an annual salary of three thousand roubles (1819). Member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Stockholm (1820), Antwerp (1827) and Dresden (1828). Engraved portraits of Tsar Alexander I (c. 1801), Nikita Muravyov (1801), Mikhail Muravyov (1803), Ivan Krylov (1816), Nikolai Karamzin (1818), Count Alexander Suvorov (1818), Count Alexei Arakcheyev (1818), Catherine the Great (1827), Alexander Pushkin (1827, 1838), Alexander Griboyedov (1828), Gavrila Derzhavin (1831), Vasily Zhukovsky (1835) and Alexei Olenin (1838). Decorated the ballads of Vasily Zhukovsky (1817), Nikolai Gnedich’s translation of Homer’s Iliad (1829) and the poems of Gavrila Derzhavin (1831–33). Taught at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1815–55), assisting Ignaz Sebastian Klauber (1815–17) and taking over as head of the engraving class after his death (1817–50). Curator of engraving at the Imperial Hermitage (1817–60) and Imperial Academy of Arts (1843–54). Died in St Petersburg (1863), buried at the Smolensk Cemetery (1863) and reburied at the Tikhvin Cemetery (1936). Contributed to the Paris Salon (1810) and the exhibitions of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1836).