Fyodor Matveyev

Painter. Born in St Petersburg to a member of the Izmailovsky Life Guards Regiment called Mikhail Matveyev (1758). Studied under Semyon Schedrin at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1764–78), graduating with a major gold medal (1778). Fellow of the Imperial Academy of Arts in Italy (from 1779). Visited Switzerland and Germany, lived and worked in Rome, where he was instructed by Jacob Philipp Hackert (early 1780s). Forced by financial circumstances (debts) to remain in Italy, where he painted Neoclassical landscapes of Rome, Tuscany, Campania and Sicily. Elected to the Imperial Academy of Arts (1807) and the Accademia di San Luca in Rome (1813). Awarded an annual pension of five hundred tahlers by the Imperial Academy of Arts (1819). Died in Rome (1826).