The Black Sea

1878–1879

Europe in search of material on Columbus

In 1878 Aivazovsky is elected an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart. He travels to the Netherlands and France, stays briefly in Frankfurt until 1879, then visits Munich and goes on to Genoa and Venice to collect material on Columbus's discovery of America; in 1879 his shows are held in Frankfurt and Stuttgart.

1880

Opens an art gallery in Feodosia

In 1880 Aivazovsky opens an exhibition hall in his Feodosia house for paintings that were never to leave Feodosia and for recently finished works; the year is officially counted as the founding of the Feodosia Art Gallery, the third museum in the Russian Empire after the Hermitage and the Tretyakov Gallery. He bequeaths the gallery to his native town.

1881

An exhibition in London on Pall Mall

In 1881 Aivazovsky shows his paintings in London, on Pall Mall; the exhibition is visited by the English painter John Everett Millais and Edward, Prince of Wales.

1882–1883

Anna Burnazian: meeting and marriage

In 1882, at the funeral of her husband, a well-known Feodosia merchant, Aivazovsky sees the young widow Anna Burnazian, forty years his junior; her beauty strikes him, and a year later they marry (other accounts date the marriage to 1882). By the painter's own account the marriage brought him still closer to the Armenian nation.