"Painting Russian ships" Topic

I've found a couple of references that suggest Russian ships of the late 18th/early 19th Centuries were painted green and either black or tarred wood, but I haven't seen a single painting from the era depict them like this. Does anyone have an example, or know where I can find one? Thanks

I can't speak for the 18th century, but by the Russo-Turkish War of 1806, most Russian Navy ships were painted black, with white stripes along the gundecks and black gunports. In other words, what we normally think of as the 'American' pattern. Unfortunately, I don't remember the source of that tidbit; I will try and find it and post that.
BWW

Cheers, I'd appreciate that.

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According to this article, the use of green may or may not have been occured but it seems plausible that some may have been painted that way.

by the Russo-Turkish War of 1806, most Russian Navy ships were painted black, with white stripes along the gundecks and black gunports. In other words, what we normally think of as the 'American' pattern.

I wonder if that reflects the influence of John Paul Jones in the 1790's.

OK, finally found the link for the black/white reference. It is:
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and the quote is, "Emperor Paul I, General-Admiral of the Russian fleet since early youth, openly criticized Catherine II's decisions regarding the navy. After ascending the throne, he changed practically everything in the Russian Navy, beginning with the uniform. An officer's full-dress uniform became more modest, dark-green instead of white and without gold braid. Strict observance of this new uniform soon became law. Fighting vessels were painted black and white and important alterations were introduced into ship construction."

I remember reading somewhere else that this would have been about 1796-98 but cannot find that reference for anything right now. For the early half of the XVIII Century, there is a book entitled _The Decoration of Russian Ships_ that says,

"Coats of arms military trophies frequently gilded. The board of vessel they colored in the yellow, green, blue, dark-blue – there was no strict regulation on this score."

That quote is from page 11, and seems to refer to the period of about 1720-25, so is a little before what you're looking at.
BWW

Thanks a lot for this – Paul came to power in 1796, so 96-98 would seem plausible for his reforms.

I have a painting of the AZOV, with another unknown ship in the background.

She is in dull olive green, with off white to pale buff along the gun ports. The upper hull along the bulwarks could be black or just very dark green.
Stern gallery work is pretty plain and looks like it could be painted gold in parts.
Masts and spars all seem to be wood brown.

Nothing special about it. Quite workman like.

The ship of the line in the background is much the same, but the colour along the gun port line is whiter.

From the look of the fortress in the background I would say it was painted to depict a Black Sea ship.

Wiki has the AZOV (1926) in Malta Harbour (Valetta). Dark lines on the Hull look like Olive green with off-white

a quote from Wiki
"After less than four years at sea she was rotten beyond salvage. Constantine and Vladimir were just as bad. (Captain later Admiral Mihael) Lazarev complained that "our ships are not worth the paint wasted on them"

This suggests to me they did not do much in the way of repainting but that is speculation alone

rabbit

link

Also, I found this

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use google translate to help, click on each ship name there is often a picture along with some data, for some reason text in capitals does not translate, so a knowledge of cyrillic is helpful.

Pictures are in English of course

rabbit