Ivan Shuvalov, who had come to Moscow to recruit gifted young men for the Academy of Arts then being founded, noticed Rokotov and took him back to the capital with him. In his first years in Saint Petersburg the young man painted mostly cadets.
1755–1765 · Workplace
Saint Petersburg
from 1757
Studies with Le Lorrain and Rotari
In Shuvalov's house, which from 1757 accommodated the Academy, he studied — according to the testimony of Jacob von Stählin — under the foreign masters Louis Le Lorrain and Pietro Rotari, absorbing the principles of Rococo aesthetics.
