Jan Chrucki

Polish painter. Born in the family of a Uniate priest in the village of Ulla in Vitebsk Province (1806). Graduated from the Faculty of the Free Arts of Polotsk Lyceum (1827) and moved to St Petersburg (1827), where he took painting lessons from George Dawe (1827–29) and studied under Alexander Warnek and Maxim Vorobyov at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1829–38). Awarded a major silver medal and the title of free artist (1836) and a minor gold medal (1838). Academician of portrait, landscape and still-life painting (1839). Left St Petersburg after the death of his father (1844) and acquired the estate of Zacharnicze near Polotsk (1844), where he designed and built a house and garden. Contributed landscapes to Jan Kazimierz Wilczy?ski’s Album de Wilna (1846). Painted icons for the Church of St Alexander Nevsky in Kovno (1847), Church of St Joseph in Trinapolis (1849) and the Church of the Three Martyrs in Vilna (1850–51) and thirty-two portraits of clergymen, still-lifes and views of Vilna for the residences of Archbishop Juozapas Semaška of Lithuania (1845–55). Died at Zacharnicze and buried in the family vault (1885).