Grooth

a family of German painters.

Georg Christoph Grooth. Born Jan. 10 or 21, 1716, in Stuttgart; died Sept. 17 (28), 1749, in St. Petersburg. Mainly a portrait painter. G. C. Grooth studied with his father Johann Christoph. From 1743 he worked in St. Petersburg where he was a court painter. He painted exquisite portraits in the rococo style (equestrian portrait of Elizaveta Petrovna with a black boy, 1743; portrait of Grand Duke Petr Fedorovich, 1743; portrait of Elizaveta Petrovna in a black masquerade domino holding a mask, 1748; all of them in the Tret’iakov Gallery).

Johann Friedrich Grooth. (also Ivan Fedorovich Groot). Born in 1717, in Stuttgart; died Feb. 6 (18), 1801, in St. Petersburg. Mainly an animal painter. Brother of Georg Christoph. He studied with his father and taught in the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (academician from 1765). He taught M. M. Ivanov. J. F. Grooth’s baroque compositions are minutely detailed and poor in color (The Parrots, 1766; The Cat and the Dead Hare, 1777; both in the Tret’iakov Gallery).