The engravings depicting the Apostles, executed at the Mikhail Artemyev factory: the use of sources and the creative search

Abstract

The article “The engravings depicting the Apostles, executed at the Mikhail Artemyev factory: the use of sources and the creative search” is devoted to the engravings from the collection of the Archaeological Church Museum of St.Tikhon's Orthodox University. The mezzotint engravings were created at Moscow between 1760–1773, probably, with the help of German engraver Johann Stenglin (1710/1715–1776). The engravers did not directly copy any originals. These works show a certain similarity to several engravings by the French engraver Francois de Louvemont (1648–?). Some details of the Moscow engravings correspond to the illustrations from the Bible made by Nicolas Joannes Piscator (1586–1652). In the engravings from the Artemyev factory, we can see a greater degree of creative freedom of their authors, an independent search for an artistic solution, although the result of this process is not always perfect.