View of the English embankment from Vasilievsky Island

The artist is the Mayer

A native of the German city of Nuremberg Johann Georg Mayr was invited to St. Petersburg in 1778 to the post of drawing master at the Academy of Sciences. Between 1796 and 1803, he performed a picturesque series of species of St. Petersburg dedicated to the centenary of the city. Nine works of this series are stored in the State Russian Museum, including this picture.

In the foreground is a sandbank near the embankment of Vasilievsky Island, on the right is the corner of the building of the Academy of Arts. On the opposite bank of the Neva is the English embankment created in 1767–1788. The bridge over the hooks of the canal is visible (by the middle of the 19th century, the segment extending to the Neva was filled out), the right bridge over the New Admiraltey Canal and the Gallery Verf.