Georg
Gzelle

In 1717 in Amsterdam at the auction met with Peter 1, and was invited by him to Russia.

In St. Petersburg, engaged in collecting and storage of the Imperial painting collection, worked as a decorator (painting a grotto in the Summer garden, 1719). Taught drawing at the Academy of Sciences.

Swiss painter, studied in Vienna, worked in Holland, where at the invitation of Peter the great in 1717 he moved to St. Petersburg. Worked in various picturesque genres (portraits, still lifes, religious. paintings, lampshades). Of the surviving works — a portrait of gr. P. A. Tolstoy (1720s), icons with images of the apostles for the Lutheran Church of St. Peter (1729), paintings on Evang. the stories in the Peter and Paul Cathedral (1730-31). Master of middle Europe. level, create still lifes, which adorned the chambers in the palaces and in the homes of individuals and was estimated by contemporaries as "excellent" (J. Staehelin). Less confident, he felt plafond painting (the ceiling on the theme of Russia's triumph in the Reception room and the Throne of the Summer Palace of Peter I, 1725-27). As court painter was occupied, was satisfied with the implementation of otd. state and private orders. Entering the service in the newly established Academy of Sciences (1725), wrote the rarities of the Kunstkammer — "the Portrait of the giant Bourgeois" (1720s), "portrait of a bearded woman" (1734), etc., From 1726 taught drawing in Acad. Mr. Ziya and 1732 in the Drawing chamber an. Among his pupils the famous painter subsequently, the peterb. types of M. I. Makhaev.