History and culture: Exhibition “Aivazovsky and the fleet” in Saint-Petersburg

The Central Naval Museum (Saint-Petersburg) hosts the exhibition “Aivazovky and the fleet”.

It features works of a prominent marine artist Ivan Aivazovsky. The museum collections contain 24 picturesque canvases and a watercolor. As a painter of the Main Naval Staff Aivazovsky reflected life of the fleet, so his paintings have battle scenes of the Crimean and the Russian-Turkish wars. Several paintings are dedicated to the maritime disasters, as well as views of coastal cities on the Baltic Sea – Kronstadt, Revel, Seaborg.

The artist, famous for his seascapes, in 1844 joined the civil service and in the position of the painter of the Main Naval Staff reached unprecedented for a creative person career – he became a privy councilor that according to the Table of Ranks is corresponded to the rank of Admiral.

The connection of the great marine artist with the Russian fleet is emphasized in exhibition halls with the models of sailing and armored ships of the era from the collections of the MNM, some of them could be seen by Aivazovsky himself. It is exhibited previously lost painting depicted a shipwreck “Lefort” on the Baltic in 1857. “Lefort” came from Revel to Kronstadt with families of crew members on board. According to one version, the board sheathing of wooden ship broke up, it rolled over and died just a few minutes. This catastrophe – the largest in the history of the Russian fleet died 826 people.

The most complete collection of works of Aivazovsky, collected in the MNM, was last presented to visitors in 2017.