Levitsky, Sergei (1819-98), Russian photographer. An aristocrat by birth, he initially studied law and entered the civil service. On a mission to the Caucasus in 1843, accompanied by the chemist and botanist Julius Fritzsche, he made several daguerreotype views that won acclaim in Paris. Travelling there himself in 1844 he met Daguerre, then moved to Rome and photographed a group of prominent Russians including Nikolai Gogol. In November 1849 he opened the Daguerreotype Institute of Sergei Levitsky in St Petersburg, soon attracting a glittering clientele. In the 1850s he adopted the wet-plate process and started working by electric light: a boon considering St Petersburg's mere 5.5 hours of winter daylight. He began the series Portraits of Russian Writers in 1857. Between 1859 and 1865 he successfully took cartes de visite in Paris, photographing Napoleon III and his family in 1864. Finally he returned to his thriving Russian studio, which he ran with his son Raphael.
Appointed court photographer in 1877, Levitsky lived to become the grand old man of Russian photography, active in salons and societies at home and abroad. But much of his work was done by assistants, his own best pictures having been made between the 1840s and 1860s. Particularly notable were portraits of the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin (1863) and the writer Alexander Herzen (1864). Unlike many contemporaries, he generally avoided hand colouring and other manipulations, although an exception was a striking 1856 portrait of Tolstoy in uniform. The Levitsky studio remained in business until 1914.
— Robin Lenman
Bibliography
- Elliott, D. (ed.), Photography in Russia 1840-1940 (1992)
