Lev Lagorio, one of Russia’s marinists, completed the “Batum” canvas in 1881. It was painted according to the academic traditions of those years. The painter, above all, masterly recreated the pre-sunset beauty of the small port city and perfectly, precisely and accurately depicted the place. The dark mountains and the leaden clouds in the background create a feeling of anxiety - the artist tried, at the same time, to follow the traditions of conflict painting of late romanticism, which his senior colleagues Maxim Vorobyev and Ivan Aivazovsky adhered to.

Lev Lagorio was born in 1827 into a wealthy merchant family in the Crimean city of Feodosia. He studied in Aivazovsky’s studio in his youth and was later admitted to the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts. The young painter was fascinated by the sea: he sailed on the ship ‘Grozyaschii’ (‘Threatening’) and traveled on his boat along the coast of the Gulf of Finland. In 1850, he won the first-degree gold medal for the painting which depicted nearly no water - ‘View of Lakhta in the vicinity of St. Petersburg’.

In 1852, Lev Lagorio graduated from the Academy and went on a trip to Europe financed by the public Treasury to study art in Paris and Rome. In 1857, he was allowed a two-year trip extension to his own account to write the landscapes of Italy, Switzerland and Holland commissioned by the Grand Duchess Alexandra Fyodorovna. In 1860, Lagorio returned to St. Petersburg. He was granted the title of professor, bypassing the academician title, for his paintings ‘Hannibal’s Fountain in Rocca di Papa near Rome’, “View of the Pontine Marshes” and “View of the Capo di Monte in Sorrento”.