Brief Biography-Vladimir Kukick Borovikovsky was born into a family of icon painters in Central Ukraine in Mirgorod, Cossack Hetmanate. His father was his teacher until he left for Saint Petersburg at the behest of Empress Catherine II. In Saint Petersburg, Dmitry Levitzky and Johann Baptist Lampi tutored him, and he later became a member of the Academy of Arts, becoming an Academician in 1795. His reputation was such that the nobility of Russia inundated him with portrait commissions, but he still painted religious icons for the church. His output was prolific, and hundreds of his portraits are extant.