Fyodor Solntsev – the watercolour “Chronicler” of ancient Russian art

The name of Fyodor Grigoryevich Solntsev is almost forgotten today. Yet his contribution to the study of ancient Russian historical and cultural monuments is hard to overestimate. For more than twenty years, he travelled to ancient Russian towns, monasteries, and churches, and worked in the repositories of the Armoury Chamber and the Hermitage, meticulously capturing on canvas every object of Russian antiquity that held historical value.

The result was a monumental scholarly work – “Antiquities of the Russian State” – which included more than 500 colour chromolithographs. In total, the artist, architect, restorer, and historian created over 5,000 watercolours and drawings. Even today, these works serve as an invaluable source for studying ancient grand-princely, tsarist, boyar and folk costumes, weapons, carriages, tableware, and church vessels.

From serfdom to the Academy of Arts

Fyodor Grigoryevich Solntsev was born 225 years ago in the village of Verkhne-Nikulskoye, near Rybinsk. His parents were serfs of one of the most prominent figures of the Russian Enlightenment – Count Aleksey Ivanovich Musin-Pushkin. It was Musin-Pushkin who discovered and introduced into scholarly circulation the famous monument of ancient Russian literature – “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”. He would also play a significant role in the fate of the future artist Fyodor Solntsev.

Fyodor's father had been taught to read and write. Peasants from Yaroslavl Governorate often travelled to the capital in search of seasonal winter work. The father of the future artist, however, found himself a permanent employment – as a cashier at the Imperial Theatre. He never returned home, but regularly sent money to his wife and five children. And when his sons were old enough, he brought them to join him in Petersburg. By that time, Count Musin-Pushkin had granted the entire Solntsev family their freedom, releasing them from serfdom. The reason for this act of generosity was Fyodor Solntsev’s remarkable artistic talent. Incidentally, his younger brother Yegor also became a well-known artist in later years.

His father did not stand in the way of his son’s destiny and, when the boy turned 15, sent him to study at the Imperial Academy of Arts, where Fyodor spent the next ten years. Throughout this time, his father paid for his education, having by then become quite prosperous. For his graduation piece “A Peasant Family Before Dinner”, Fyodor Solntsev was awarded the minor gold medal and was retained at the Academy as a pensioner for further improvement. Two years later, his watercolour “The Saviour and the Pharisees” earned him the major gold medal from the Academy Council.

Drawing “With the utmost distinctness”

At that time, the President of the Academy of Arts was Aleksey Nikolayevich Olenin – an archaeologist, historian, bibliographer, and a trusted confidant of Emperors Alexander I and Nicholas I. The young talent Fyodor Solntsev was a frequent guest at the Olenins’ hospitable home, where he mingled with the brightest representatives of the creative elite of his time, including Alexander Pushkin.

It was Olenin who later set the artist on the path that would become the main work of his long life. In the 1820s, an ancient treasure hoard containing many gold ornaments was discovered near Ryazan. The Academy of Arts announced a competition for the best drawings of the artefacts, in which Fyodor Solntsev took part. Olenin later showed the watercolours of one of the Academy’s finest students to Emperor Nicholas I. The Emperor was delighted by the precision and delicacy of Solntsev’s work. On Olenin’s recommendation, he issued an imperial command to send the artist to Moscow and other towns “to draw ancient Russian customs, costumes, weapons, church and royal utensils, household items, horse harnesses, and other objects”. And not merely to draw them. According to Olenin’s plan, Solntsev’s drawings were to be published in albums for further study. The imperial decree emphasised this: “that everything worthy of attention and constituting material for history or an object of archaeological interest to scholars and artists should be drawn with the utmost distinctness, described and published”.

In other words, Fyodor Solntsev was to carry out a kind of inventory of all the ancient Russian treasures that had been discovered and were held in various locations, and to draw them in as accurate a manner as possible. The sheer volume of work was colossal! Yet for a true workaholic who had devoted his entire life to his beloved calling, this was the greatest stroke of fortune.

“Having gathered all these treasures… we restored the Terem”

For more than twenty years, Fyodor Grigoryevich travelled across the old Russian towns, monasteries, and churches in search of the treasures of ancient Russian history. In the course of his mission, he visited Novgorod, Ryazan, Torzhok, Yuryev-Polsky, Smolensk; in Moscow he worked in the Armoury Chamber, the Assumption Cathedral and the Archangel Cathedral; and in St Petersburg – in the Hermitage.

All his drawings, which in their quality and astonishing precision of detail resemble photographs rather than watercolours, Fyodor Solntsev sent to his patron Aleksey Nikolayevich Olenin. Olenin selected the best works for the future publication and provided the artist with detailed instructions. Sadly, A. N. Olenin himself did not live to see the realisation of his idea: he passed away in 1843. The first albums of the superbly produced work Antiquities of the Russian State began to appear in 1849 and continued to be issued until 1853.

In total, six albums were published, containing 500 sheets of colour chromolithographs. Fyodor Solntsev created more than 5,000 watercolours and drawings in all. Around 3,000 original works have survived to this day. Today, Fyodor Solntsev’s collection is housed in the Armoury Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin. The edition of Antiquities of the Russian State was printed in a run of just 600 copies and is now considered the most expensive Russian historical book.

Having prepared such a substantial work on ancient Russian history, Fyodor Solntsev naturally became one of the leading experts on the ancient Russian style in art. It was therefore no coincidence that he was entrusted with the reconstruction of the Terem Palace – a 17th-century architectural monument in the Moscow Kremlin that had been badly damaged by fire in 1701.

“I began the restoration of the Terems with the door surrounds, which were moulded and painted over with white glue paint. Where details could not be discerned, I supplemented them according to the overall character of the surviving decorations. I did the same with the interior furnishings of the Terems. In the attics and basements of suburban palaces (Izmailovo, Kolomenskoye, and others), I found some ancient objects, such as a chair and an armchair. From these, it was not difficult to make as many copies as were needed for all nine rooms.The cornice of a bed was found, for which columns were made to match the design; there were pillowcases, cushions, a carpet embroidered by the Tsarevna Sofya Alexeyevna, and the table of Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich. In the village of Kolomenskoye, a tiled stove was found; as some of the tiles proved to be damaged, new ones had to be produced. A number of other ancient objects were also discovered. Having gathered all these trappings, and having supplemented the missing items with new ones, made according to drawings that I had carefully compiled from various ancient decorations and objects, we restored the Terems,” – Fyodor Solntsev wrote in his memoirs.

Later, for the Grand Kremlin Palace, the Kremlin Service was produced according to his sketches from the Armoury Chamber. Some 4,000 plates alone were made for this service. Today, around 1,000 items from the Kremlin Service have been preserved.

Fyodor Grigoryevich Solntsev lived an extraordinarily long life for his era – nearly 91 years. He worked almost until his very last days. He restored churches in many ancient Russian cities, in particular rebuilding the St Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv. The last ten years of his life were devoted to designing books for an Orthodox publishing house. He died on 3 March 1892 and was buried at the Volkov Orthodox Cemetery in St Petersburg.