Asknazy, a famous St. Petersburg painter, created portraits, genre works, and paintings of biblical scenes. Laconic in composition and austere in its colour palette, Asknazy’s painting Moses’ Parents, which depicts the moment the parents part with their son, is significant because of how it deals with the biblical subject, making it seem like a real-life situation.

Asknazy Isaac

Asknazy, Isaac Lvovich (1856, Drissa, Vitebsk Province— 1902, Moscow)

The painter Isaac Asknazy studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts, first as an occasional student and then full-time from 1874–1879. He was awarded minor silver medals (1874, 1875, 1877) and two major silver medals (1877) before graduating as afirst-class artist. Asknazy then worked in Germany and Italy for three years, during which time hestudied under Hans Makart in Rome. From 1881, he participated in exhibitions at the Imperial Academy of Arts, as well as the Exposition Universelle, Paris,in 1900 and, through the 1890s and early 1900s, at the St Petersburg Society of Artists, where he became a member in 1902.