Nikolai Alexandrovitch Lvov (1751–1803)
The painter’s mother’s great-grandfather, Nikolai Alexandrovitch Lvov, was an honorary member of the Academy of Painting and a man of letters. He also was a great architect who designed the portals of Peter and Paul Fortress in Saint-Petersburg (1784–1787), where he also built a Trinity Church known as “Koulitch and Pashka” (1785–1790) in reference to Russian pastries. Its original architectural stye combines a Roman rotunda with a pyramidal bell-tower. In Gatchina near Black Lake, Nikolai Lvov also built Priory Palace (1799), which features a mixture of neo-gothic style and Old Russian architecture.