20.11.1845-12.12.1924

Shcherbatov Mikhail Lazarevich – a famous painter-portraitist, native of the village of Rudnya Bogucharskogo Uezd, (now Vorobievsky district). He studied

in the Voronezh workshop of the icon painter E.K. Ogneva. He also studied at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists in St. Petersburg from 1867 to 1869. One year his teacher was Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy, and after Mikhail Lazarevich himself taught at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts until 1878

The painter participated in the creation of a gallery of portraits of Russian historical figures commissioned by Vasily Andreyevich Dashkov for the Moscow Rumyantsev Museum. For 15 years I.N. Kramskoy and M.L. Shcherbatov worked in the same workshop. The main part of the artist’s creative heritage was portraiture, which is now stored in the State Hermitage Museum, the State Historical Museum, the State Russian Museum, the Voronezh Regional Art Museum. I.N. Kramsky and others. In the years 1907-1910. Mikhail Lazarevich Scherbatov gave a number of his works as a gift to the Ostrogozhsk art gallery. And in Rudna, in 1912, a school building for peasant children was built on his means.

Mikhail Scherbatov executed many orders for the royal court. In the Voronezh Regional Art Museum. The portrait of Elena Pavlovna Kochubei is presented by I. N. Kramskoy. The Princess occupied a prominent position at court: the maid of honor, the state lady of the court of Empress Maria Feodorovna, the chief of the Imperial Court of the Russian Empire, the Ober-Hofmeister. According to memoirs, she dominated court life, she was an invariable participant in palace festivities and entertainments. Portraits of the princess, famous for its beauty, were painted by many artists. In the portrait of Helen Pavlovna brush Michael Scherbatov see her self-confidence, strictness and exactingness. But, despite the fact that the work was done already at the end of her life, the face of an elderly woman left a trace of her former beauty.

The painter lived a long and rich life, remained in the memory of people as a talented painter.

Mikhail Lazarevich Scherbatov died on December 12, 1924.

Image: M. L. Shcherbatov. Portrait of E. P. Kochubey. 1888