Benjamin Paterssen was born in 1750 Varberg, Sweden, son of a customs'
scribe. He studied in Goteborg in the studio of the painter S. Frick. In
the late 1770s he traveled throughout Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, in
1784 lived and worked in Riga. In 1787 he settled in St. Petersburg where
he lived to the end of his life. Paterssen worked in portraiture and genre
painting, but is most famous for landscapes and cityscapes. He fulfilled
about 100 views of St. Petersburg, among them 33 paintings, others – watercolors
and engravings. In 1798 Peterssen became a member of the Stockholm Academy
of Arts, where he exhibited his works many times.
The artist died in 1815 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Bibliography: Paintings of the 18th-early 20th centuries from the Reserves of
the Russian Museum. By K. Mikhailova and G. Smirnov. Leningrad. 1982.
Russian Watercolor in the Collection of the Hermitage. Moscow.
1988.
