Vasily
Alexandrovich Prokhorov

Born in Orel, died 28 June 1882 in the Old Peterhof. The son of a priest, translated from the eagles first in lots and then to Kherson, he remained after his father's death seven years; it took part of the Kherson Archbishop Gabriel and put him in the local Seminary. After graduating from a course in 1839, Prokhorov has been a teacher at the parish school in Odessa, where he stayed for two years, and then, after retiring, filed in may, 1842, a petition to the most Reverend Gabriel to dismiss him from the clergy, saying, "being released in St. Petersburg, for family visits, he found there seeking funds in the Academy of Arts, for improvements in painting and architecture, to which he has an irresistible and constant inclination from an early age". The 9th July of the same year was held a decree of dismissal Prokhorov from the clergy and he entered the Academy of fine Arts, where he became a disciple of A. G. Markov. But there he soon became convinced in the absence of the artistic vocation, and came only to full-scale class left the Academy, still learning to draw what helped him a lot in future activities. In 1844 he enrolled as a history teacher in the Naval Cadet Corps. Illustrating his lessons with pictures and drawings from the ancient world, Prokhorov in 1851 he published, at the expense of the Body, "ancient History," and in 1857, "History of Rome", with many illustrations. In Case Prokhorov he served until 1857, and in 1854-1857 he was in charge of the editorial Board of "Journal of General utility information". Finally, Prokhorov is fully surrendered to his true calling: "He zealously engaged in what was always just more of a propensity and passion — collecting items of old Russian art and life and the study of monuments of the Byzantine art; he began to buy all the wonderful items in this category, which only appeared in Petersburg and he was affordable; but still more he acquired during his travels in Russia, primarily in the province of Novgorod, where he had many friends among the old believers. Soon the diverse collections it has grown to a very large size, and hardly one in our group of fans and connoisseurs of could be found, in the late fifties and early sixties, such a large number of ancient Russian embroideries, men's and women's shirts, women's, rich patterns, dressings and all sorts of hats, sundresses, shoes, etc. moreover, Prokhorov has accumulated, little by little, a large number of drawings, part taken from nature, a part of the copied countless manuscripts and printed editions, which he was able to consider the larger social, and in private collections. In the hands Prokhorov, thus accumulated, to the end of the sixties, we can say, the whole iconographic Museum, truly wonderful. By this time, the then Vice-President of the Academy of Arts to Prince G. G. Gagarin, a known supporter of Byzantism, conceived to make the Academy "a Museum of Orthodox iconography", later renamed "the ancient Christian Museum". Met with Prokhorov, Prince Gagarin was appointed him a teacher of General history, with course Christian and Russian antiquities, the Academy, and also the custodian of the mentioned Museum (1861). The best choice he could make. Prokhorov reacted to the Museum with such love and with the knowledge that soon the Museum was given in perfect order. He has placed all things, hung them, personally restored many of them, and sometimes he performed nedostacha models in the collection of the monuments. Moreover, at his request, the Academy repeatedly instructed him to do trip to do research in Russia about the history of ancient art. Such trips Prokhorov have made in 1863, 1867, 1869, and 1871-1875. Thanks to these, izyskaniyam, and thanks to the numerous offerings of the Prokhorov (later all of his private collection was purchased by the Academy of fine Arts), early Christian Museum left the establishment still and frozen on the initial point of departure, as is often the case with many of our institutions, museums and collections. Moreover, in addition to the Museum, he made a Museum of the ancient. With such rich material, Prokhorov planned, in March, 1862, to publish artistic and archaeological journal, under the title of "Christian Antiquities", using for pictures to put in it, shortly before the open method of photolithography and arranged in the apartment a small lithograph and the photograph. However, he made every effort to achieve the greatest possible accuracy in the transfer pattern, and in this respect the publication of his and still hasn't lost its value. He published there many most important monuments of architecture, painting, sculpture and other works of art. The publication does not give, however, is anything but a loss, so that in April 1865, Prokhorov was forced to stop it. Nevertheless, this failure didn't kill him energy, and he continued his work on the collection and study of material for the study of the monuments of our ancient art and life. Only lacked the funds for its publication. Then the Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, who was then Deputy President of the Academy of Arts, procured him a grant of 7000 p., which, since 1871, the journal resumed in two departments: "Christian Antiquities", published in 1871-1872, 1875 and 1877, and the "Russian Antiquities", published in 1871 and 1876, after which publication ceased altogether. Over the years, Prokhorov was also issued several large and valuable monographs; these are: "the Church of St. George in Staraya Ladoga Rurik fortress", with lots of drawings and, in particular, with the ancient frescoes of the XII century, never before published: "Materials in the study of the history of architecture in Russia", where he published the monuments of Kiev, Novgorod-Pskov, Vladimir-Suzdal and Moscow architecture, and while studying the monuments of the ancient period have used the images in the thumbnails and the illuminations of ancient manuscripts. For this edition were copied by students of the Stroganov school of pictures of churches from the "Izbornik Svyatoslav", "Gabrilove gospel" and other manuscripts. He copied many of these drawings from the manuscripts of the Imperial Public Library. In "Materials for the history of Russian clothes" he put a lot of drawings of ancient manuscripts, Church frescoes, with different materials, found during excavations, and it was also used capital letters, comparing this stuff with surviving to our times folk costumes. On the third archaeological Congress was read the report "outline of the history of Byzantine art and an overview of Russian architecture". His last monograph was a pamphlet: "the Bulgarian excavations near Eski-Zagra". In addition to these works, he was in charge at the invitation of the Theater Management, customerno part in the formulation of the operas "a life for the Tsar" (1864), "Rogneda" (1865), "Nizhny Novgorod", "Boris Godunov", "Ruslan and Ludmila", "the maid of Pskov", the ballet "the King of Kandal", etc. In 1850, Prokhorov drew on the stone portrait of the Kursk self-taught astronomer F. A. Zelenova, published in "the Bulletin of the Geographical Society" of the same year. 28 June 1882 Prokhorov died in the Old Peterhof, not having time to finish tidying the mentioned "Materials on the history of Russian costume" edition which has finished already his son. (Cumans)