Artist Leonid Mikhailovich Brailovsky. An unapproved sketch for the 300 Years of the House of Romanov series.
He was born in Kharkiv in 1871 into an Orthodox noble family. His father, Mikhail Brailovsky, was the city mayor; his mother came from the Sedlyarevsky line of Little Russian nobility. After studying at a classical gymnasium, he entered the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. He studied painting and architecture, specializing in landscape painting. His mentor during those and subsequent years of study was the then still young A. N. Beketov, later a professor, academician, and a leading teacher of an entire generation of Soviet architects.
During his studies he was repeatedly awarded for academic success: in 1890 a small silver medal, in 1892 a large silver medal, and in 1893 a small gold medal. For a design for the imperial stables he was awarded a gold medal.
In 1894 he successfully graduated from the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg in the architecture class. Owing to his excellent performance, he became an Academy pensioner, and was granted the honorary right to travel at state expense in 1895–1897 on a foreign tour—to Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Spain, highly exotic countries in which he found new subjects. In a sense, they also made him famous.
Brailovsky also visited France, Germany, Austria, and England, where he again made architectural sketches and measurements that became part of his creative report on the two-year voyage. Some of his architectural watercolors, sent as a report on the foreign trip, were acquired by the Museum of the Academy of Arts, the Institute of Civil Engineers, and the Russian Museum. Some of his works even ended up in the Byzantine Museum at the Sorbonne, which testifies to the maturity of his painting as well as to undeniable commercial success.
Abroad, Brailovsky attended the studios of R. Bompiani in Rome and the Academie R. Julian in Paris. This gave him certain contacts and familiarity with some methods of Western European art.
After returning home, L. M. Brailovsky received a professorial position at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, and at the same time began teaching at the Stroganov School. He also carried out stage work at the Imperial Bolshoi Theatre.
In Crimea, the Brailovskys became closely acquainted with A. P. Chekhov's sister, Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, who not far from them, also in Miskhor, likewise bought herself a small dacha in order to be closer to the writer's White Dacha, which was located in Yalta.
After the writer's death, in Moscow, an original memorial—an upright grave marker with three small domes and a cast cross with enamel and a crucifix—was made to Brailovsky's design and installed on the classic author's grave. In Soviet times, the monument and the fence, also made to Brailovsky's sketches, were restored by decision of the Ministry of Culture and put in proper condition. It should be noted that the grave itself had to be moved from one place to another.
At this time the Academy of Arts commissioned Brailovsky to copy the frescoes of the Novgorod Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior on Nereditsa. His work was used by the well-known Byzantinist Millet in his book published at the Sorbonne.
In 1916 Leonid Mikhailovich Brailovsky was awarded the title of Academician of the Academy of Arts. He became the last person to receive this title during the imperial period of Russian history.
As a first step toward establishing an independent creative career no longer tied to apprenticeship, the Academy's top leadership suggested that he move to Moscow to fulfill a major commission: creating watercolor images of the interiors of the Yusupov Palace. Within several months, L. M. Brailovsky produced 12 watercolors of high artistic quality, depicting in the smallest details all the luxury of the recently restored rooms of the old Russian residence. Striking for their refined precision of detail, these watercolor albums could already then, without any exaggeration, stand in the same rank as similar works by his predecessors depicting the interiors of Russian palaces and mansions.
After the October Revolution, in 1919, together with his wife, the artist Rimma Nikitichna Brailovskaya (nee Schmidt), he emigrated first to Latvia and later lived in Constantinople. Via Constantinople he reached Serbia, where for three years Brailovsky held the post of chief artist of the Royal Theatres in Belgrade.
In 1925 he moved to Rome. Under the influence of the priests A. Sipyagin and M. Nedotochin, Brailovsky was reconciled with the Catholic Church. In 1932 an exhibition of 40 paintings by the Brailovskys was organized, depicting monuments of Russian religious art. This collection was presented to Pius XI. The collection became the basis of a set of 100 paintings and 20 plans depicting monuments of church painting and architecture of Kyiv, Novgorod, Moscow, Rostov, Suzdal, and so on. The Brailovskys' apartment in Rome became a kind of center of Russian life. The home regularly hosted gatherings for compatriots, tea parties were arranged, and endless intellectual conversations took place.
He exhibited in many cities; together with his spouse he held two solo exhibitions in Paris and the Vatican. With the participation of Princess M. Radziwill, an illustrated catalog of the exhibited paintings was published and three small albums of corresponding postcards were issued.
He died in 1937 in Rome.