This article examines important components of the academic method of working on historical painting in the second half of the 18th century: studying the experience of artists of different times, styles and trends, as well as copying their paintings. On the example of works by the historical painter, student and pensioner of the Imperial Academy of Arts P.I. Sokolov (1753—1791) it is investigated how the practice of copying “reference” works (contemporary and earlier) influenced the choice of subjects and the formation of compositional techniques in the master’s painting.

The research objectives included the search for works that served as a source of inspiration for the artist when creating his own works, containing features recognizable to his contemporaries. The source base includes both pictorial and written sources. The reports and P.I. Sokolov’s “Italian Journal” kept in the Imperial Academy of Arts collection of the Russian State Historical Archive, part of which the author of this article published earlier, belong to the reporting documentation of Russian pensioners.

It is shown that the first stage of P.I. Sokolov’s appeal to “reference” works was the academic practice of creating a copy for educational purposes, and the next stage was the study of works during the years of the artist’s retirement (1773—1778). Working in the workshops of the leading European masters P. Batoni and Ch.-J. Natoire, familiarity with their creative manner also played a role in the formation of the painter’s individual artistic style. Later, the choice of generations of Imperial Academy of Arts students as models for copying the paintings of P.I. Sokolov shows that the artist managed to create reference works according to all the canons of historical painting of classicism.