Johann Stenglin

Little more is known of him until 1741, when he accepted an invitation from the engraver and cartographer Jacob von Staehlin [de] to come to St. Petersburg and work at the newly established art department of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

He was forced to leave the Academy in 1744, following some serious disagreements with its director, Johann Daniel Schumacher, but was able to make a living as a freelance artist.

Around 1750, due to continued misunderstandings with the academic authorities, he left St. Petersburg for Moscow, where he painted portrait miniatures and lived in extreme poverty.

Most of his engravings are portraits; including those of Staehlin; the Danish Ambassador, Andreas Schumacher [da]; the mathematician, Leonhard Euler; and the French adventurer, Jean Armand de Lestocq.

The Chancellery of the Academy of Sciences possesses eleven of his engravings of the Aurora Borealis over St. Petersburg, from sketches by Mikhail Lomonosov.