VASSILY POLENOV
ALBUMS

FEMALE LINE GENEALOGY

Nikolai Alexandrovitch Lvov (1751–1803)

The painter’s mother’s great-grandfather, Nikolai Alexandrovitch Lvov, was an honorary member of the Academy of Painting and a man of letters. He also was a great architect who designed the portals of Peter and Paul Fortress in Saint-Petersburg (1784–1787), where he also built a Trinity Church known as “Koulitch and Pashka” (1785–1790) in reference to Russian pastries. Its original architectural stye combines a Roman rotunda with a pyramidal bell-tower. In Gatchina near Black Lake, Nikolai Lvov also built Priory Palace (1799), which features a mixture of neo-gothic style and Old Russian architecture.

Vera Nikolaievna Lvova (1792–1873)

The painter’s mother’s grandmother, Vera Nikolaievna Lvova, lost her parents at a very young age and was taken in by her uncle, the poet Gavriil Romanovitch Dierjavine. Growing up in the Dierjavine household, she came into contact with elite literary and artistic figures of the late 18th century.  Vera Nikolaievna spent her entire childhood surrounded by avant-garde thinkers in a highly cultured atmosphere.

Maria Alexeievna Voeïkova (1816–1895)

The painter’s mother, Maria Alexeievna Voeïkova, married Dmitri Vassilievitch in 1843. An enthusiastic lover of art, she was also a portraitist. She was also the author of a children’s book entitled Summer in Tsarskoie Selo, written in 1852 and published in four editions. Her book includes sections written by parents, dealing with topics as varied as physics, history, Russian epic poems, and the biographies of illustrious painters and musicians.