Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky

Ivan Aivazovsky (1817–1900) was a Russian marine painter of Armenian descent, born in Feodosia in Crimea, where he also died. He graduated from the Imperial Academy of Arts in St Petersburg in 1837 with a gold medal and travelled in Italy and elsewhere in Europe between 1840 and 1844. Back in Russia, he was appointed official painter of the Russian Navy and became a professor of seascape painting in 1847. Over a career of nearly sixty years he painted about six thousand works, mostly seascapes, and held an exceptional number of solo exhibitions. His subjects range from calm bays and moonlit coasts to storms and naval battles, among them The Battle of Sinop (1853), Rainbow (1873) and The Ninth Wave. In 1857 he became the first Russian artist to receive the Legion of Honour. In 1880 he opened a gallery at his home in Feodosia, which later became a museum. A late Romantic, he was widely recognised during his lifetime.