thumb|200px|right|Lady in a Pink Dress, 1770s

Fyodor Stepanovich Rokotov (Fedor Rokotov) (; 1736 – December 24, 1808) was a Russian painter who specialized in portraits.

Fyodor Rokotov was born in Vorotsovo (now a part of the Obruchevsky District of Moscow) into a family of peasant serfs, belonging to the Repnins. Much in his biography is obscure. He studied art in Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts. After buying back his freedom at the end of the 1750s he became established as a fashionable painter.

In 1765, Rokotov was elected an Academician, but he did not work as a professor in the Academy long, because it interfered with his painting. He returned to Moscow in 1765, where he lived for the rest of his life. He had a lot of commissions there, becoming one of the best portrait painters of his time.

Among his best-known portraits are Portrait of Alexandra Struyskaya (1772), sometimes called the Russian Mona Lisa and admittedly the most celebrated piece of the 18th-century Russian painting; Portrait of Countess Elisabeth Santi (1785), and Lady in a Pink Dress (1770s, illustration, right).

Rokotov avoided painting formal portraits with much adornment and decoration. Instead he was one of the first Russian painters advancing a psychological portrait with attention to optical and atmospheric effects.

Selected works

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Rokotov paul 1 as child.JPG|Emperor Paul I as a Child. 1761

Rokotov orlov.JPG|Count I. G. Orlov. c.1762-1765

Catherine_II_by_F.Rokotov_after_Roslin_(1780s,_Hermitage)_2.jpg|Catherine II, 1770

Rokotov Struyskaya.JPG|Alexandra Struyskaya. 1772

Ivan Shuvalov by F.Rokotov (1760, Hermitage).jpg|Ivan Shuvalov 1760

Rokotov kvashnina samarina.jpg|Anna Yuryevna Kvashnina-Samarina. 1770s

Daria Troubetskay by Rokotov.jpg|Princess Darya Gruzinskaya, late 1700s

Rokotov lady in white cap.JPG|Lady in a White Cap. 1790s

Anna Artiomievna Buturlina.jpg|Countess Anna Buturlina, c. 1793.

Фёдор Рокотов (1760е) Портрет Никиты Ивановича Панина.jpeg|Nikita Ivanovich Panin,1760s

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See also

  • List of Russian artists

References

  • V.N. Alexandrov History of Russian Art, Minsk, 2004, (In Russian)
  • Online gallery of Rokotov paintings