Sylvester Schedrin

Painter. Son of Feodosy Schedrin, nephew of Semyon Schedrin. Studied landscape painting under Fyodor Alexeyev, Mikhail Ivanov and Jean-François Thomas de Thomon at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1800–11). Awarded a silver medal (1808), minor gold medal (1809), major gold medal (1811) and a first-class certificate and foreign fellowship (1812). Forced by the Napoleonic Wars to remain in St Petersburg, where he painted views on Petrovsky Island (1812–18). Travelled to Italy via Stettin, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Trieste and Venice (1818). Lived and worked in Rome (1818), Naples (1819–20) and Rome, Tivoli, Subiaco and Albano (1821–25). Painted scenes of Italian nature, bays, cliffs, seaside villages and terraces. One of the first European artists to work en plein air and a founding member of the Posillipo school in Naples. Decided to remain in Naples at the end of his scholarship (1825), working in Sorrento, Amalfi, Vico, Capri, Pozzuoli and Ischia (1825–30). Caught a throat infection, which was wrongly treated and deteriorated (1825). Painted increasingly nightmarish nocturnal landscapes as the disease progressed (late 1820s). Visited Genoa, Pisa, Turin and Switzerland (1829), spent the winter in Rome (1829–30) and drank mineral waters at Vico (1830). Died at the Casa di Tasso in Sorrento and buried at the Jesuit church of San Vincenzo (1830). Reburied in the town cemetery after the church was pulled down with a tombstone designed by his friend and fellow student Samuel Friedrich Halberg and cast by Baron Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg (1844). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1813–15, 1820, 1824, 1827) and the Society for the Encouragement of Artists (1826–27).