Bogdan Saltanov

Bogdan Saltanov , also known as Ivan Ievlevich Saltanov, was a Persianborn Armenian painter at the court of Alexis I of Russia and his successors. Saltanov headed the painting workshop of the Kremlin Armoury from 1686. Saltanovs legacy include Orthodox icons for church and secular use, illuminated manuscripts, secular parsuna portraits including the portraits of Stepan Razin and Feodor III of Russia as a young man .

Bogdan Saltanov became the last court painter hired before the death of Simon Ushakov, the undisputed leader of Muscovite art school. Ushakov rated Saltanovs skills as mediocre. Saltanov was the fourth foreign artist employed by the Moscow court . When Stanislaw Loputsky, chief of the court painters, left Moscow in the 1670s, his job was awarded to Ivan Bezmin with Saltanov second in command Saltanov took the lead in 1686 following repressions against Bezmin. All the Slavic chiefs of painters workshop, including Simon Ushakov, were naturally born nobles, and apparently Saltanov was also recognized as such. Saltanovs earliest attested work were the tafta icons icons painted on cloth with partial cloth application imitating garments of the saints. Igor Grabar suggested that this new genre of icon was Saltanovs own invention owing to his Oriental roots, but admitted that the painting itself was mediocre. These strange tafta masters, so nonRussian in spirit, thought and feeling, terminate

Source: Wikipedia