Vladimir Moshkov

Biography

The title of the picture that first made Moshkov known runs to several lines: “The Battle before the City of Leipzig on the Wachau Heights, between the Villages of Konnewitz and Liebertwolkwitz, Fought on the Sixth Day of October 1813…”. It goes on to name the emperor, the king of Prussia and General Barclay de Tolly, who commanded the Russian and Prussian armies. The picture was painted in 1815, two years after the battle itself.

Moshkov was born in Moscow, into a merchant family, on 16 July 1792 (Old Style). At nine he was sent to the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, and all his years of study were spent there. His teacher was Mikhail Matveevich Ivanov, who worked with battle subjects. Awards followed one after another: a lesser silver medal in 1809, a greater silver medal in 1810, a lesser gold medal in 1811. In 1812, for the painting “The Battle of the Romans and the Latins”, he received the greater gold medal and a first-degree certificate with the right to be called a class artist. The Leipzig canvas made him an academician. It seems to me noteworthy that the subject was not an ancient one, as in his graduation piece, but a very recent one, with living participants.

In 1816–1818 Moshkov was in Persia as part of a Russian diplomatic mission. General Alexei Yermolov, at whose initiative, it is reported, he received the civil rank of titular counsellor, seems to have valued in him a man able to sketch quickly what he saw as well as a painter. This journey and the years after it left a series of paintings and sketches on Russian-Persian relations: among the titles are “The Triumphal Entry of Count Paskevich into Tabriz”, Paskevich’s meeting with Abbas Mirza, the signing of the Treaty of Turkmenchay, the storming of the Sardarabad fortress and the victory over the Persians at Javan-Bulaq. Some of these subjects belong to events later than the 1816–1818 journey itself, so I have no documents showing where and when he made sketches for them. In 1828–1829 he was on campaign again, this time with the Russian army in Asia Minor. During the campaign he made sketches of battles, and paintings were later produced from them.

In 1830 Moshkov settled in Tiflis. He then moved into the customs service and went to Astrakhan. He died there in 1839, at about forty-seven.