Nikolay Nikolayevich Ghe, a Russian artist, was born into a noble family of French origin: his great-grandfather emigrated from France at the end of the 18th century during the Great French Revolution. The parents of Ghe died when he was still a child. He was brought up by his serf nurse, who taught him, as he later said, compassion for the humiliated and insulted, a keen sense of other people’s sorrows. Ghe entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts in 1850, after having studied physics and math in a University for some time. In the Academy he studied in the class of professor Piotr Basin, a painter of historical subjects and portraits. But, according to Ghe himself, he was mainly influenced by Karl Bruloff.
All works, though rather romantic, are fulfilled in accordance with the demanding principles of the classicism of the Academy. He graduated from the Academy in 1857 with a Major Gold Medal. During the next 6 years of studies abroad he visited Germany, Switzerland, France and in 1860 settled in Italy. His interest lay in historical genre and portraiture.
