Mikhail Ivanovich Belsky

Portrait of the composer
Dmitry Bortniansky (1788)

His father, Ivan Ivanovich Belsky, was a history painter and Academician at the Imperial Academy of Arts.[1] In 1770, the Academy awarded him a silver medal for his outstanding classwork. His primary instructors there were Anton Losenko and Dmitry Levitzky.[2]

In 1773, together with the engraver, Gavriil Skorodumov, he was awarded a travel grant to study abroad, in London. They received 300 Rubles per year, and letters of recommendation.[2] When they arrived, they were placed under the patronage of Count Alexei Musin-Pushkin, the Russian Envoy. Classes at the Royal Academy of Arts were open to them, they were able to copy the Old Masters, attend lectures and travel throughout the provinces.[2]

In 1776, they were scheduled to continue their travels, but Skorodumov chose to remain in London. Belsky went to Paris and became a student of Jean-Baptiste Greuze in 1780, at his father's expense.[2]

Very little is known of his life beyond that point, except that he returned to Russia and worked as a portrait painter in St. Petersburg. Few of his paintings have been identified with any certainty and most are believed to be in the possession of their subject's families.

• Biography @ the Русская антикварная галерея
• Pyotr Petrov, Сборник материалов для истории Императорской Академии художеств (Collection of materials for the history of the Imperial Academy of Arts), Vol.1, Рипол Классик (reprint) ISBN 978-5-458-00809-9