Countess Lyubov Nikitichna Kulesheva

Sablukov Ivan Semenovich. The exact information about the place of birth of Sablukov has not been preserved. Presumably, Ivan came from a Cossack family on the left bank of the Dnieper. As a child, possessing a wonderful voice, he was brought to St. Petersburg and assigned to a group of adolescent court singers, sang in the Court Chapel. During the formation of Russian art in the middle of the 18th century, an interesting case took place when a group of court singing teenagers, due to their maturity with the accompanying breaking of voices, was transferred to art training. Among the young men was Ivan Semyonovich Sablukov, who became an apprentice to the famous painter Count P.B. Sheremetev - I.P. Argunov. Incredibly, this experiment justified itself: many choristers achieved great success in the art that was new to them, eventually becoming academicians of painting.
By the personal order of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, who saw the works of the young artist presented to her, he was assigned on January 3, 1759 to the newly opened Imperial Academy of Arts, where he continued his painting studies under the direction of D. G. Levitsky.
In 1762, from an apprentice, he became an associate of the Academy, and already in 1765 he was awarded the title of academician of portrait painting, a full member of the Academy of Arts.
In 1767 he moved to Kharkov, where he headed the art, and then the higher classes of drawing at the Kharkov Collegium and taught there until 1773.
Among his students were L. Kalinovsky, Semyon Mayatsky, Vasily Neminuschiy.
There are only a few canvases belonging to the brush of I.S.Sablukov and surviving to our time. Of his works, a portrait of Yuryev has survived, which is in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and "Portrait of Countess Lyubov Nikitichna Kusheleva" in the Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum.