Sorrento is a small town in Italy located on the southern shore of the Bay of Naples in Campania. In 1544 the famous Italian poet of the 16th century Torquato Tasso was born here. Later Sorrento attracted many people of literature including Goethe, Wagner, Nietzsche, Gorky, Ibsen, Byron, Stendhal, and many other renowned men of art that turned Sorrento into an iconic place for living. Schedrin frequently visited Sorrento and worked in it starting with 1825 and created numerous landscapes in the town and its vicinity. The artist called this picture View of Sorrento with Tasso’s House. In reality, however the house in which Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) was born had collapsed into the sea with a part of the sea shore long time before that. In the 19th century people often called an old house built on the rocks of a small cape that separated the Big Harbor of Sorrento from the Small one, Tasso’s house. Schedrin painted his picture in the Big Harbor looking to the East in the direction of the Small Harbor. In the middle distance a viewer can see the rocky peninsular of Punto Scutolo with its end point – cape Gradlle that marks the borders of Sorrento water area. Today five variants of this picture are exhibited in different museums of Russia – one in the State Russian Museum, one in the Alupka Palace Museum, one in the Vladivostok Art Gallery, and two in the State Tretyakov Gallery.

Schedrin Sylvester

Schedrin, Sylvester Feodosiyevich
1791, St Petersburg - 1830, Sorrento
Painter, landscapist. Son of Feodosius Schedrin, professor of sculpture at the Imperial Academy of Arts. Studied landscape painting under Mikhail Ivanov at the Imperial Academy of Arts (from 1800). Awarded a major gold medal (1811) and first-class certificate (1812). Remained at the Imperial Academy of Arts to perfect his art. Contributed to exhibitions of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1813-15, 1820, 1824, 1827) and the Society for the Encouragement of Artists (1826-27). Fellow of the Imperial Academy of Arts in Italy (1818). Settled in Rome. Lived in Naples (1819-20), Rome, Tivoli, Subiaco and Albano (1821-25) and Naples, Sorrento, Amalfi and Capri (1825-30). Travelled across north Italy and Switzerland (1829). Died and buried in Sorrento (1830).