ISCOVESCU, BARBU (JUDAH):

Rumanian painter; born 1816 at Bucharest; died Oct. 24, 1854, at Constantinople. The son of a house-painter, he served his apprenticeship in that calling under his father, afterward going to Vienna and Paris, where he devoted himself to drawing and painting. Returning to Bucharest, he was, together with Rosenthal, one of the first painters to disseminate in Rumania the plastic arts.

Iscovescu became involved in the revolutionary movement. During his sojourn at Paris he had become acquainted with several young Wallachians who subsequently initiated the Rumanian revolution of 1848; on his return to Bucharest he became associated with them and undertook several missions for the revolutionary committee. When the Russians entered Wallachia and suppressed the revolution, Iscovescu, with others, was banished to Constantinople. He died in exile, and, wishing to be united in death with his companions in arms, was buried in the Greek Orthodox cemetery, in the same grave with Negulici and the preacher Atanasie Luzin, who were exiled with him. Heliade Radulescu, kaimakam and a member of the revolutionary government, and D. Balintineanu, one of the great poets of Wallachia, composed his epitaph, in verse.

Bibliography:
  • M. Schwarzfeld. Yehudah Barbu Iscovescu, in Anuarul Pentru Israeliti, viii. 118, Bucharest, 1884.
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