Alexander Antonovich Rizzoni

Alexander Antonovich Rizzoni, or Alessandro Rizzoni (; 4 February 1836, in Riga – 29 April 1902, in Rome) was a Russian-Italian painter of portraits and genre scenes; mostly on Catholic themes.

Biography He was born to an Italian family of artisans; originally from Bologna. He received his first lessons from his brother Pavel, who was also an artist. In 1852, he enrolled at the Imperial Academy of Arts, where he studied with Bogdan Willewalde. Five years later, he was awarded two silver medals for his work.

That same year, he made a study trip to Italy and France, at his own expense. When he returned in 1860, he received a gold medal for his painting "Jewish Smugglers", which might now be perceived as somewhat Anti-Semitic although, judging by his later works, he harbored no such sentiment.

After that, he travelled again, to Spain and Belgium and, when he returned in 1862, received another gold medal along with a stipend that allowed him to continue his studies abroad. except for the Miriskussniki who, at the turn of the centuries, came to denounce Rizzoni as the "worst of all modern artists", with his work deemed unworthy to be present anywhere; whether Rizzoni was aware of that criticism or not is, however, unknown. Ultimately, he shot himself to death in May 1902, aged sixty-six; whereas the Soviet and Post-Soviet scholars claim but never prove the suicide to come out of the aforementioned criticism, the reports in Novoye Vremya say that in fact, Rizzoni made his choice as his rheumatism progressively worsened.

In 1990, one of his paintings, "The Italian Shop", was among a dozen stolen from the Serpukhov Historical and Art Museum. It was recovered in 2010, after being found in a private collection.