Who Was the Author of the Pastel Portraits of Dostoevsky’s Parents? (from New Explorations of the Writer’s Genealogy

The article introduces into scientific circulation the archival documents stored in the Central State Archive of Moscow and dedicated to the relatives of F. M. Dostoevsky — his greatuncle (grandmother’s older brother) Vasily Mikhailovich Kotelnitsky and his wife Nadezhda Andreevna, nee Rumyantseva. This is a metric certificate of the wedding on February 4, 1806 in the Transfiguration Church of Moscow, as well as a marriage search compiled by the clergy of the specified church. In the latter document, the list of the guarantors for the groom, along with Dostoevsky’s own grandfather Fyodor Timofeevich Nechaev and his brother-in-law (married to sisters) Andrey Gavrilovich Tikhomirov, includes the “drawing teacher” Fyodor Ivanovich Popov. Using other archival documents (metric records, confession sheets), the author of the article substantiates that this person is the artist Popov (whose name had remained unknown up to this day), who in 1823 painted the famous pastel portraits of Maria and Mikhail Dostoevsky — the parents of the writer — and who, according to Andrei Dostoevsky, was in some kind of relationship with their mother, Maria Fedorovna. The article also provides other data (approximate age, places of service) about the artist Fyodor Ivanovich Popov and his wife Evlampia Nikolaevna (nee Chestnova or Chesnova).