Tolstoy F.P., (1783-1873), sculptor

Categories / Art/Fine Arts/Personalia
TOLSTOY Fedor Petrovich (1783 - 1873, St. Petersburg), Count, medalist, drawer and painter, Privy Counsellor (1846). Graduated from the Marine Cadet Corps in 1802, served in the fleet, retired in 1804. From 1802 he studied as an auditor at the Academy of Arts under I.P. Prokofiev. In 1806 he started serving at the Hermitage. In 1810 he became a medallist at the Mint, where he worked until 1825, when he began teaching at the Academy of Arts. He attained professorship in 1842, having received honorary membership in 1809, served as Vice-President between 1828 and 1859, and going on to serve as Deputy of President between 1859 an 1868. He became famous for his wax bas-reliefs: Darling (1808-09, the State Hermitage) and scenes from Ulysses by Homer (1810-15, the State Tretyakov Gallery); and his medallions: a series in memory of the events of the military campaigns of 1812-15 (1814-26, the State Russian Museum), the Russian-Persian War of 1826-28, and the Russian-Turkish war of 1828-29 (1826-39, the State Russian Museum). His plume illustrations to the poem Darling by I.F. Bogdanovich (1820-33, the State Tretyakov Gallery published in 1850) had a great influence on the development of Russian book graphics. He created miniature drawings, illuminated still-lives (Bunch of Flowers, Butterfly and Bird, 1820, the State Tretyakov Gallery), and curved statuettes depicting scenes of folk and army life, raising this genre to a high professional level. He composed the ballets Eolus’ Flute (1838) and Echo (1842), designing their sets according to his own drawings. Tolstoy's peculiar touch, which was visible in all his various forms of creativity, combined the formal principles of Classicism with a Romantic perception of reality. He was a mason and participant of Decembrists movement. He was a member of the Salvation Union and of the Major Department of the Prosperity Union (1818-21), and left the movement in 1821 after His Imperial Majesty’s Order was not committed for trial. He was an honorary member of the Free Society for Lovers of the Russian Word (1818, President from 1820) and Free Society for Lovers of Literature, Sciences, and Arts (1817). He was one of founders and chairman (1819-20) of the Society for Establishment of Schools after the Method of Mutual Education. He wrote several memoirs. In the 1850s he lived at 2 Third Line of Vasilievsky Island (in the building of the Academy of Arts). He was buried at Necropolis of the 18th Century.

Work: The Proceedings of Count F.P. Tolstoy. М., 2001.

Reference: Кузнецова Э. В. Федор Петрович Толстой, 1783-1873. М., 1977.

O. L. Leikind, D.Y. Severyukhin. Bogdanovich Ippolit Fedorovich
Tolstoy Fedor Petrovich
3d Line of Vasilievsky Island/Saint Petersburg, city, house 2
Кузнецова Э. В. Федор Петрович Толстой, 1783-1873. М., 1977 Naval Cadet Corps
Naval Cadet Corps
Academy of Arts
Academy of Arts
Hermitage
Hermitage
St. Petersburg Mint
St. Petersburg Mint
Russian Museum, State
Free Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, Literary and Social Organization
Free Society for the Lovers of Literature, Sciences and Arts, Literary and Social Organization
Necropolis of the18th Century