Original works of art

The genre of animal portraiture in Old Russia was not new in the days of Martynow. A well known officer of the Imperial guards, a certain P. V. N., who used to reside in St. Petersburg in the twenties of the past century, possessed a pack of hounds which were all portrayed by young artists of the metropolis.

It is believe that N. A. Martynow was the son of the celebrated Andrei Efymovich Martynow (1768-1826) a talented academician painter of the period of the Empress Catherine 11, and Emperor Alexander I.

Martynow was a prominent painter during the reign of Nicholas 1, and even was considered then the leading draftsman of the Empire. As such he received a commission from the ministry of the State Treasury to make sketches of the old monuments of the Russian art and archaeology. The commission was accompanied by a salary of 3,000 rubles a year, a royal remuneration in those days. A precious album of his sketches made by him in his new capacity was treasured before the Great War in the Archive of The Society of the Lovers of the Ancient Literature in St. Petersburg. The rest of his sketches and drawings were preserved in the Historical Museum of the Archaeological Society of Moscow.

In spite of the fact that N. A. Martynow was really a great artist, enjoying the best reputation in the highest social strata of the capital, he was a man of remarkable modesty. Little has been known about him in the academical circles of the artistical world, and he passed away simply unnoticed by his fellow artists. His beautiful aquarelles and drawings of superb "borzois," all royal animals owned by the members of the Imperial family and by the leading representatives of the most famous families of Russia of those days (1864-1879), were recently exported from Russia, simply unnoticed. . .