Ruzhnikov Paintings

Ruzhnikov
Fine art & antiques

Ruzhnikov
Fine art & antiques
APN SARL
Paris, France
Andre Ruzhnikov
+44-7866-638-973
+1-917-244-3777
+7-905-715-5530
ruzhnikov.com
e-mail: [email protected]
[email protected]
About Ruzhnikov
I started in the art business almost 50 years ago in the Soviet Union. First I concentrated on Russian icons which were
abundant in those days and from the business angle were rather lucrative owing to the burgeoning interest in the
West. Both Sotheby’s and Christie’s in London and NYC conducted brisk trade having around 10 icon sales a year
while selling well over 1,000. icons per year. Multitude of icon dealers from Europe flocked to these sales and spread
around newly purchased icons in numerous galleries and antique shops thus furthering interest towards Russian
icons and creating many collectors and forging new collections. A constant unending supply of icons from the Soviet
Union fueled the growing market.
In 1976, I left Moscow and after a short period of deliberations as to what to do I seriously embarked on the Russian
antique business. My meagre finances allowed only few very small investments. My English was luckily by far superior
compared to that of a couple of my countrymen whom I met at the time. My new friends succeeded in bringing
significant collections of Russian icons, silver, etc. They needed a vehicle to sell the icons and other Russian imperial
wares, so I became their representative. The opportunity allowed me access to a significant diversified stock. Upon
settling near San Francisco I serendipitously rather quickly met several well endowed American collectors of Russian
art and antiques as well as a few budding enthusiastic novices.
Many a year have passed, these days I still carry a large inventory of Russian icons of varying subject matters, schools,
vintage and size. Collection of silver and enamel includes pieces by prominent Russian makers such as Faberge,
Ovchinnikov, Khlebnikov, Sazikov, Grachev and many others, some with Imperial provenance. A group of porcelain
is primarily based on the military plates and Easter eggs dating from the periods of Nicholas I, Alexander II,
Alexander III and Nicholas II. A significant collection of Russian watercolors features works by P.Sokolov, W.Hau,
M.Vorobiev, A.Brullov, P.Balashev, I.Repin, M.Dobuzhinsky and many others.
A newly created collection of European silver consists of major works by Odiot (resplendent set of 4 large candelabra
from the Rothschild collection), Aucoc (silver–gilt table with marble top from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition),
Garrard, Hunt & Roskell (equestrian figure of William of Orange), John Mortimer and John Samuel Hunt, Paul Storr
and others. The silver catalogue is being currently assembled and with a bit of luck will be available in late spring
of 2017.
Paintings include both classical Itinerant Russian works by 19th – early 20th century artists by K.Makovsky,
A.Makovsky, S.Zhukovsky, I.Kulikov, N.Bogdanov-Belsky, K.Aivazovsky, I Shishkin, just to name a few. Collection
of European works is quite eclectic featuring 16th and 17th century works by Dutch masters as well as Impressionist
and Modern featuring T.Lempicka, G.Loiseau, H.Martin, H.Moret, A.Renoir, de Smet among many others.
• We eagerly solicit outright purchases of works similar to those in the current catalogue
• We provide brokering services and search for the desired pictures
• We advise on auction buying
• We help with restoration
• We help and advise on framing
• We arrange very competitive rate insurance
• We assist with the most reliable shipping
• We assist with tax free storage
Paintings
•
Old Masters
19th & 20th century
Impressionism, Post-Impressionism & Modern
Ruzhnikov
10 • PAINTINGS
PHILIPP PETER ROOS
(1655 – 1706)
A GOAT AND A SHEEP IN AN ITALIANATE LANDSCAPE
circa 1690
oil on canvas
98 x 73 cm
Goat and a Sheep in an Italianate Landscape is a perfect

example of Philipp Peter Roos’ masterful animal portraiture.
Committed to studying animals from life, his attention to form
is reflected in the exceptionally lifelike rendering of the titular
animals’ physique and fur. This painting is distinguished by the
startling intensity of the goat’s expression, rendered in gestural
marks of impasto paint. His burning eyes stare directly out at
the viewer: an emphatic, arresting presence whose wildness and
intensity are echoed by the sheer rock and brooding sky of the
painting’s background.
Roos’ paintings from this period are characterised by the

marriage of a loose, informal compositional style, and highly
precise brushwork. As demonstrated by A Goat and a Sheep in
an Italianate Landscape, his animals are full of character and
individual vitality. This work closely resembles the paintings
completed by Roos around the year 1690, such as Resting
Goat and Sheep, held in the collection at the Kunstmuseum in
Bern, Switzerland. His paintings are featured in major public
collections, including the Hermitage Museum, St.Petersburg,
the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, the Louvre, Paris, the
Courtauld Institute of Art, London, the Museo di Castelvecchio,
Verona, the Museo del Prado, Madrid, and the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York.
WWW.RUZHNIKOV.COM • 11
Ruzhnikov
12 • PAINTINGS
WORKSHOP OF ANTOINE CARON
(1521 – 1599)
BLOODBATH OF THE TRIUMVIRATE
mid 16th Century
oil on wooden pane
86 x 149 cm
The rare surviving works by Antoine Caron, one of the most

important French Mannerist painters, depict historical and
mythological events and elegant court ceremonie. The unusual
subject of the present painting depicts a scene from ancient
history: the massacres in Rome in 43 B.C. ordered by the
Triumvirate of Octavian, Mark Antony and Lepidus, who are
seen enthroned on the right of the picture. The subject was
probably drawn from Claude de Seysels Les Guerres des
Romains which went through several editions between 1544
and 1560. These paintings were undoubtedly intended as a
commentary upon contemporary events, in particular the
savage repression of the French Protestants at the massacre of
Vassy (1562) under the Duc de Guise, whose alliance with the
Constable de Montmorençy and Jacques d’Albon de Saint-André
was also known as the Triumvirate.
The composition relates to Massacres under the Triumvirate
(1566) in the Louvre, the only signed and dated painting by
Caron, and is known in some twenty different versions, all of
them anonymous.
Ruzhnikov
Antoine Caron
Massacres of the Triumvirate, 1566
Louvre, Paris
Antoine Caron
Tiburtine Sibyl (Augustus and the Sibyl)
circa 1575–1580
Louvre, Paris
14 • PAINTINGS
Workshop of Antoine Caron
Massacres of the Triumvirate, circa 1550
Musée cantonal de Lausanne
Antoine Caron can be named among the few significant French

painters of the epoch of the Wars of Religion (1560–98). Antoine
Caron started his career in Beauvais, his native city, then a
relatively important artistic centre, where he painted some
religious pictures and designed cartoons for stained-glass
windows. Between 1540 and 1550 Caron was active in the
workshops at Fontainebleau. Later, he became court painter
to Catherine de’ Medici, Queen Regent (1560–63). Besides
Jean Cousin the younger, he was the only French artist from
this period with a recognizable artistic personality and was an
important witness to the activities of the Valois court during the
reigns of Charles IX (reg. 1560–1574) and Henry III (reg. 1574–
1589) and the violent wars between Catholics and Huguenots.
Like his royal patrons, Caron was an ardent Roman Catholic; he
was connected with the Catholic League and a friend of its poet
and pamphleteer, Louis d’Orléans.
Ruzhnikov
16 • PAINTINGS
FRANS FRANCKEN THE YOUNGER
(1581 – 1642)
BRAVERY OF THE PERSIAN WOMEN
circa 1605
oil on copper panel
50 x 66.5 cm
stamped on the reverse with the panel maker’s mark of Pieter Stas
(active in Antwerp 1587-1610)
Bravery of the Persian Women is an early example of Frans

Francken the Younger’s celebrated history paintings. Here he
portrays one of the stories related by Plutarch in volume five
of his Moralia, which is dedicated to the courage of women.
Beating a frantic retreat, the Persian army led by Cyrus the
Great sought to re-enter the city from whence it came, at the
risk of bringing the pursuing enemy with it. Furious that they
should be placed in danger, the women of the city ran out to
meet the soldiers and lifted up their garments to shame them.
Accusing their husbands of cowardice, the women urged them
back into battle. Mortified, the Persians renewed their courage
and returned to rout the enemy.
This cabinet-sized painting is exemplary of Francken’s technical

skill in the composition of tightly-packed crowd scenes and the
rendering of small figures. It is also typical of his preference for
historical or allegorical subject matter that could—like Plutarch’s
stories—convey a moralising message to the viewer.
Ruzhnikov
18 • PAINTINGS
AFTER JEAN-FRÉDÉRIC SCHALL
(1752 – 1825)
LA SERVANTE OFFICIEUSE
late 18th century
oil on copper panel
41 x 54 cm
The painting is a replica of the same composition by the French

rococo artist Jean-Frederic Schall (1752-1825). The original
version, signed and dated 1785, was formerly in the Louis
Deglatigny Collection, Rouen (see A. Girodie, Jean-Frederic
Schall, un peintre de Fetes Galantes, 1927, plate xi) and has been
engraved by Alexandre Chaponnier.
Jean-Frederic Schall (1752-1825) was one of the last important

Rococo artists. He became famous for his erotic and pastoral
scenes in a style influenced by François Boucher, Jean-
Honoré Fragonard and Pierre-Antoine Baudouin. The present
composition, a meticulously painted private scene set in an
interior, is a characteristic example of the artist’s style and
recurring subject matter.
Ruzhnikov
20 • PAINTINGS
FOLLOWER OF CARAVAGGIO
(1571 – 1610)
CIMON AND PERO
17th century
oil on canvas
96.5 x 116 cm
The exemplum – a story or anecdote designed to encourage

moral instruction – of ‘Roman Charity’ was one of the most
popular subjects throughout seventeenth-and eighteenth-
century Italian and Flemish painting. Taken from the ancient
Roman historian Valerius Maximus’s Memorable Acts and
Sayings of the Ancient Romans, the tale presents an act of
selfless devotion as the highest example of honouring one’s
parent.
This painting, by one of Caravaggio’s followers, depicts the

moment at which Pero, a beautiful young woman, visits her
father Cimon while he is incarcerated in prison. Cimon has been
sentenced to death by starvation, and is close to perishing. Pero,
however, is able to keep him alive by secretly breastfeeding him.
When the jailers discover her actions, they are moved to pity.
Cimon’s life is spared.
The scene was depicted by many artists, notably Peter Paul

Rubens and Jan Janssens. Caravaggio himself featured the
scene in his 1606 work The Seven Works of Mercy. The present
painting is based on Caravaggio’s version. It captures the
desperation, urgency and tenderness of this extraordinary
moment of sacrifice.
Ruzhnikov
22 • PAINTINGS
THE MASTER OF THE FERTILITY
OF THE EGG
(IL MAESTRO DELLA FERTILITÀ DELL’UOVO, ACTIVE IN
BRESCIA IN THE 17TH CENTURY)
GROTESQUE SCENE WITH ANIMALS AND STYLISED FIGURES
17th century
oil on canvas
90 x 120 cm
inscribed ‘Il scolaro maggiore è un asino - e il maestro è un
porco - giudicatelo voi - chi ne sa più di noi’
The paintings of the still anonymous Master of the Fertility of

the Egg (Il Maestro della Fertilità dell’Uovo) are often associated
with those of Faustino Bocchi (Brescia 1659-1741) and his circle.
However, the satirical content and symbolic meanings of his
paintings are expressed in a unique and unusual style.
In all the three paintings, the protagonist is a black pig in a

pink garment that appears to personify authority. Since pigs
are generally associated with negative values such as greed,
lust, gluttony or sloth, the paintings should very likely be read
as satirical allegories, containing elements of the world turned
upside down (‘Il mondo alla riversa’)
The translated inscription of the first painting reads: “The

student is a donkey and the teacher is a pig / you can judge who
has a greater knowledge than us”. The black pig is shown as a
teacher lecturing a number of students who are personified
by various animals; among them, in the upper left corner, is
the donkey mentioned in the inscription. The painting recalls
a composition by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Ass at School,
which bears an inscription that reads in translation: “Although
the ass goes to school in order to learn, if it is an ass, it will not
return (as) a horse”. Also the Master of the Fertility of the Egg’s
painting can be read as a visualisation of the saying that a slow-
witted person is not capable of becoming learned regardless of
how much he studies. Beyond that, since the Italian master also
personifies the teacher as a pig, the painting seems to mock the
incompetence of teachers as well.
Ruzhnikov
24 • PAINTINGS
OF THE EGG
17th century
oil on canvas
90 x 120 cm
inscribed ‘Fe pian pian che il porco dorme’
In the second painting we find the black pig in a hammock that

bears an inscription reading: “Be quiet / the pig sleeps”. Below
this, several scenes are shown which seem to have negative
connotations. Compare, for instance, the second rendering of
the black pig that is about to kill a cock. The general meaning
of the painting is more difficult to decipher than the other two
works but it seems very likely that the underlying statement is
similar to the saying: “When the cat is away the mice will play”. It
is tempting to transfer this general meaning to a socio-political
level, and read the painting as a plea for a strong central power
in order to prevent the society from descending into chaos.
Ruzhnikov
26 • PAINTINGS
OF THE EGG
17th century
oil on canvas
90 x 120 cm
inscribed ‘Fama volat che il porco fa l’astrologo’
In the third painting the black pig plays the role of an astrologer,
as described in the inscription on the flag in the upper right
corner (‘Il porco fa l ́astrologo’). The first part of the inscription
(‘Fama volat’) is a saying taken from Virgil ́s Aeneid (III, 121) that
can be translated as “rumour has wings”. The motif of the cat,
which is sitting on a flying cock in the upper left corner, can
be read as a humorous allusion to this passage. However, the
main subject of the composition seems to be a different one.
The painting portrays depictions of charlatan practitioners who
are offering their services on the marketplace, or in the course
of festivals, that had already been depicted by Hieronymus
Bosch and his circle. At the same time, the painting seems to
denounce both the fraudulent intentions and incompetence of
the astrologer, as well as the credulousness of the “customers”.
Since the painting bears compositional similarities to depictions
of triumphal processions such as Andrea Mantegna’s Triumphs
of Caesar, the grotesque character of the low content is
additionally emphasised by the contrast to a noble tradition.
The name of the painter derives from a painting in the
Milwaukee Art Museum, titled The Fertility of the Egg. There
is no documentary evidence regarding this master and the
painter’s identity is still in question. Based on his 17th century
manner of painting and Northern style some scholars have
suggested that the painter may have been a predecessor of
Faustino Bocchi.
The Master could be seen as the inventor of a “moral zoology”,

emphasizing the madness of human condition and the vanity
and ridiculousness inherent in life by depicting seemingly
absurd characters. The contents and style of the Master are
typical of the 17th century.
Ruzhnikov
28 • PAINTINGS
CIRCLE OF CORNELIS VAN DALEM (1530-1573); Van Dalem’s paintings, the chronology of which remains to
JAN VAN WECHELEN (ACTIVE IN ANTWERP CIRCA 1530- be established, were highly appreciated by 17th-century
1550) connoisseurs; Rubens owned a landscape by him, to which he
added the figure of St Hubert hunting. Van Dalem’s Landscape
THE LEGEND OF THE BAKER OF EEKLO with Primitive Men, of which only scattered fragments survive,
was in the collection of Cornelis van der Geest and was included
circa 1570-1580 in Willem van Haecht’s imaginary depiction of his art gallery
oil on wooden panel
(1628; Antwerp, Rubenshuis).
74 x 103 cm
The painting depicts the curious legend of the baker of Eeklo,

which was popular in the Netherlands during the 16th century.
According to the story, those who wanted to change their
appearance or revert the effects of time on their faces could
go to the town of Eeklo, where they could have a new head
baked for them. The head would be carefully cut from the trunk,
kneaded, glazed and placed into the oven. In the meantime,
a green cabbage was placed over the trunk, symbolically
«replacing» the head. Once the new head was baked, it was
sewn in its place on the trunk. However, the new head could fail
to bake, or it could over bake, resulting in deformed or deficient
heads. This story served as a cautionary tale to those who were
dissatisfied with their appearance.
There are about ten extant versions depicting this interesting

subject, with differing compositions. The best known is a
small panel in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, on display in the
Muiderslot, which is labelled in the 1976 Rijksmuseum catalogue
as ‘Copy after Cornelis van Dalem and Jan van Wechelen’. Others
are, for example, in the museums in Leipzig and Turin, Sabauda.
The existence of these many versions attest to the popularity of
the story and the influence of the image. The background is also
depicted in a gallery interior by David Teniers the Elder (see E.
Duverger, H. Vlieghe, David Teniers der Aeltere, Utrecht 1971,
fig. 47).
The present painting relates closest to the panel in the

Rijksmuseum, and Dr. Luuk Pijl has suggested a tentative
date of circa 1570-1580 on stylistic grounds, on the basis of
photographs. It is quite likely that this and the Rijksmusum
version relate in turn to the original by Cornelis van Dalem
and Jan Van Wechelen, whereabouts of which remain so far
unknown.
Cornelis van Dalem (1530-1573) - Flemish Mannerist painter,

contemporary of Pieter Bruegel the elder, was most famous for
his landscapes and cityscapes. The figures in his paintings were
often added by other artists, such as Gillis Mostaert or Jan van
Wechelen (active in Antwerp circa 1530-1550).
After Cornelis van Dalem and Jan van Wechelen

The Legend of the Baker of Eeklo
oil on panel, 30 × 39.5 cm.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Ruzhnikov
30 • PAINTINGS
NIKOLAI ORLOV (1863-1924) In his preface to the album reproducing Orlov’s series of
paintings ‘Russian Peasants’, Leo Tolstoy named ‘Monopoly’
MONOPOLY among the best works by the artist.
1904
oil on canvas Tolstoy first saw one of Orlov’s paintings in 1884 at the
152 x 203 cm 22nd exhibition of the Society of Wandering Exhibitions in
St.Petersburg. The work made a strong impression on the writer,
signed in Cyrillic and dated lower right: who sought an introduction to the artist and thereafter became
‘N. Orlov, 1904’ a committed follower of Orlov’s work. The two maintained an
intensive correspondence, with Orlov sending photographs of
Provenance
The artist’s collection his latest paintings to Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy’s famous country
Frank C. Havens, Oakland, CA estate. Seven reproductions of paintings by Orlov hung in the
George Lievre, San Francisco, CA (purchased from above in 1916) writer’s office. Writing the introductory text to Russian Peasants
Joseph B. Friedman (purchased from above in November 1928) (St.Petersburg, 1908), Tolstoy confessed that, ‘It is a wonderful
Private collection, USA thing to publish an album of Orlov’s paintings. Orlov is my
favourite artist, and is my favourite artist because the subject of
Exhibitions
his paintings is my favourite subject. This subject is the Russian
Louisiana Purchase exposition, St. Louis, Missouri, 1904
people, the real Russian peasants.’
Literature
World’s Fair Bulletin, vol 6, no.2, 1904
L.N. Tolstoy, Russkie muzhiki [Russian peasants], St.Petersburg., 1908,
ill. VII, illustration in colour
R.C. Williams, Russian Art and American Money, Cambridge, 1980, p.
53, ill.6, illustration in colour
Ruzhnikov
‘It is a wonderful thing to publish an album of

Orlov’s paintings. Orlov is my favourite artist, and
is my favourite artist because the subject of his
paintings is my favourite subject. This subject is
the Russian people, the real Russian peasants.’
L. Tolstoy, Russian Peasants, 1908
View of the Russian Section of the Fine Arts

Exhibit at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition,
St. Louis, 1904
32 • PAINTINGS
Nikolai Vasilyevich Orlov was born in 1863 to a poor peasant family in a small village near Tula. He was left an orphan at an early
age. His Initial artistic training Orlov obtained in an icon-painting workshop under the guidance of his uncle, the icon painter V.I.
Boghuslavky. Later, he studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture under Vladimir Makovsky, and Illarion
Pryanishnikov. He graduated from the School with a large silver medal and the title of the class artist. In 1892 he moved with his family
to the village of Kuleshov in Kaluga province. He worked mainly as a genre painter, depicting the meager life of the Russian peasantry.
In 1893-1894, Orlov showed his works at exhibitions of the Moscow Society of Art Lovers. Since 1894 he became an exhibitor, and
since 1896 - a member of the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions or the Wanderers (Peredvizhniki). In the 1900’s, in addition to easel
painting, Orlov painted icons and church interiors in Tambov, Tula, Kaluga and Orel provinces. After 1910 Orlov gradually abandoned
painting and focused on teaching.
Orlov belonged to a circle of genre artists such as Nikolai Yaroshenko, Vladimir Makovsky, and Nikolai Kasatkin; he was a close friend of
Leo Tolstoy.
The fate of Orlov’s paintings is dramatic: only some of them are now kept in museums (the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum in
St.Petersburg, the State Historical Museum, the Museum of Contemporary History of Russia, the Lipetsk Regional Museum, and the
Tula Regional Art Museum, etc.). Part of the artist’s heritage belongs to his descendants. But the rest of his works were lost.
Ruzhnikov
34 • PAINTINGS
ALEXANDER MAKOVSKY
(1869-1924)
HOSPITALITY
1901
oil on canvas
74 cm x 86 cm
signed in Cyrillic and dated lower left: Alexander Makovsky, 1901
The present painting reveals the influence of the renowned

Konstantin Makovsky, who was Alexander’s uncle. The
composition resembles that of Konstantin Makovsky’s From the
Everyday Life of the Russian Boyar in the Late XVII Century, one
of the elder Makovsky’s best paintings from the 1860’s.
Born to a famous artistic dynasty, Alexander Makovsky was also

the son of Vladimir Makovsky and grandson of the collector
Yegor Makovsky. He studied painting at the School of Painting,
Sculpture and Architecture in Moscow with Vasily Polenov and
Vladimir Makovsky, and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in
St.Petersburg under Ilya Repin. In 1893, he joined the Wanderers
(Peredvizhniki), a group of realist painters and Russia’s first
independent artistic society.
Alexander Makovsky’s works are found in the collections of

Konstantin Makovsky
the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the Russian Museum in From the Everyday Life of the Russian Boyar in
St.Petersburg and numerous other museums. the Late XVII Century, 1868
Sold at Sotheby’s London 26 Nov 2007,

price realized 2,036,500 GBP
Ruzhnikov
36 • PAINTINGS
ANDREI RUMYANTSEV
(? - 1907)
RECONCILIATION
1898
oil on canvas
80 x 100 cm
signed in Cyrillic and dated lower right: Rumyantsev, 1898
Provenance
Private collection, USA
Sale Sotheby’s New York, 1 May 2001,
Sale 7642, lot 49
The painting by Andrei Antipovich Rumyantsev is a characteristic

example of the artist’s realist manner. Similar works by
Rumyantsev are in the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery in
Moscow and the Chuvash State Museum of Art in Cheboksary.
Rumyantsev was a later follower of the Russian realist school

of genre painting, represented by such names as Vladimir
Makovsky, Ilya Repin, Vasily Perov and others. In 1863-1866
Rumyantsev studied art at the Moscow School of Painting,
Sculpture and Architecture, in 1876 presented his work at the
exhibition of the Imperial Academy of Fine Art in St.Petersburg,
the same year he became a member of the Moscow Society of
Art Lovers.
Ruzhnikov
38 • PAINTINGS
NIKOLAI RACHKOV (1825 – 1895)
HOMELESS
1869
oil on canvas
64 x 77 cm
signed in Cyrillic and dated lower left:
1869 N. Rachkov
Provenance
Private collection, UK
Sale Sotheby’s London, 7 April 1989, lot 23
Nikolai Rachkov is best known for his portraits of young women

and children, such as Little Flower Seller (1869) and Portrait of
a Young Girl (1877). Here, however, the artist demonstrates
his skill in depicting a genre scene, and introduces a strong
narrative element to the piece. The painting captured moments
of ordinary life, and imbued them with a sense of narrative
or emotion. In Homeless, Rachkov demonstrates his ability to
capture the intense emotional charge of his portrait paintings.
Born near Nizhny Novgorod in 1825, from 1838 Rachkov

studied at Alexander Stupin’s art school in Arzamas, and after
at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in St.Petersburg. In 1845
the Academy awarded him with a silver medal for the Portrait
of a Gypsy Woman. From 1860-s the artist moved to Moscow
where he was one of the founding members of the the Moscow
Society of Art Lovers along with such as I.Aivazovsky, I.Levitan,
V.Perov, A.Savrasov, and others.
Rachkov was one of the most significant Russian genre painters,

his works are in the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery in
Moscow, the Russian Museum in St.Petersburg and the
Voronezh Museum.
Ruzhnikov
40 • PAINTINGS
KONSTANTIN MAKOVSKY
(1839 - 1915)
RUSSIAN BEAUTY
1885
oil on canvas
94 x 66 cm
signed in Latin and dated lower left:
K. Makovsky, 1885 I.I.
Provenance
Private collection
Sale Sotheby’s London, December 1, 2004, lot 30
In the 1880’s, Konstantin Makovsky became interested in the

opulent boyar life. In the following years, he created a number
of large-scale multi-figure compositions based on this theme,
including A Boyar Wedding Feast, 1883, now at the Hillwood
Museum, Washington, D.C., and The Russian Bride’s Attire, 1887,
the San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts, that earned him the
admiration of Alexander II.
These ambitious works were built up from smaller portrait

studies of Boyars and Boyarinas, such as the present work.
Russian Beauty is exceptionally fine example of this genre, it is
particularly notable for the finely rendered details: intricately
embroidered garments and pearl-encrusted kokoshnik
underscore Makovsky’s virtuosity, while the young girl’s delicate
features, softly modelled and slightly blurred, recall the gentle
mastery of Renaissance artists.
A Boyar Wedding Feast, 1883

Hillwood Museum, Washington, D.C.
Ruzhnikov
42 • PAINTINGS
NIKOLAI DMITRIEV-ORENBURGSKY
(1837 – 1898)
SOLDIERS RESTING BY THE WELL
1877
oil on wooden panel
47 x 33 cm
signed in Cyrillic and dated lower right: 1877, Paris, N. Dmitriev-
Orenburgsky
Soldiers Resting by the Well is a fine example of late nineteenth-

century Russian genre painting. It was painted in the first year of
the Russian-Turkish War, however, and may have been Nikolai
Dmitrievich Dmitriev-Orenburgsky’s attempt to depict that
conflict in an unexpected light.
Nikolai Dmitrievich Dmitriev-Orenburgsky was born in Nizhny

Novgorod in 1837. In 1856, he embarked upon his studies under
the painter Fidelio Bruni at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts,
St.Petersburg. Here, between 1856 and 1860, he won numerous
silver medals and a minor gold medal. He was also part of the
‘revolt of fourteen’: a group of students who rebelled against the
formal conservatism of their school, and refused to paint the
topic set by the Imperial Academy.
In 1863 Dmitriev-Orenburgsky resigned, receiving the title

of Second-Class Artist as a result of his early departure. The
same year he became a founding member of the famous
St.Petersburg Artel of Artists. Headed by the painter and critic
Ivan Kramskoy, the Artel was created to support a network of
Realist painters, who rejected Academic traditions in favour of
direct depictions of ordinary Russian life.
Dmitriev-Orenburgsky settled permanently in Paris in the early

1870’s. He was one of the main participants in the establishment
of the local ‘Society of Russian Artists’, which exhibited his
paintings in the annual salons. During the Russian-Turkish war
of 1877-1878 Dmitriev-Orenburgsky was commissioned by the
Russian Imperial court a series of battle paintings. Emperor
Alexander II Convoy’s Battle at Sistovski Heights and Alexander
II’s Entrance to Ploeshty are the most famous examples.
Works by Dmitriev-Orenburgsky are in the collections of the

Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and the Russian Museum in
St.Petersburg.
Ruzhnikov
44 • PAINTINGS
IVAN KULIKOV
(1875 – 1941)
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST’S WIFE
1917
oil on canvas
90 x 120 cm
signed in Cyrillic and dated lower right:
I. Kulikov, 917
Provenance
Kulikov painted his wife quite a few times in various roles:

as a good looking peasant girl (By the Gate, 1913, The State
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow), an urban woman (Cheremukha,
1912, the Murom Museum of History and Art) and a Russian
boyar woman wearing a headdress decorated with pearls and a
resplendent outfit with precious stones (In Ruissian Attire, 1916,
the Murom Museum of History and Art).
Kulikov, a devoted pupil and follower of Ilya Repin, was a
wonderful portrait painter. Having enjoyed a successful early
career, by the early 1910’s he had already begun to revise
the creative principles of his predecessors. Along with Boris
Kustodiev and Filipp Maliavin, he was one of a few artists who
chose Russian provincial life as his main subject matter. In
his mature works, he managed to fuse the images of national
Romanticism movement with an almost impressionistic
treatment of colour.
Works by Ivan Kulikov are in many museum collections,

including the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian
Museum, the Murom Museum of History and Art and others.
Ivan Kulikov
In Ruissian Attire, 1916
Murom Museum of History and Art
Ruzhnikov
46 • PAINTINGS
Ruzhnikov
48 • PAINTINGS
UNKNOWN PAINTER
PAIR OF PORTRAITS OF VSEVOLOD PAVLOVITCH PUSHIN
(1803-1877) AND HIS WIFE NÉE NATALIA NIKOLAEVNA NOROVA
oil on canvas
circa 1840
81 x 66 cm
Vsevolod Pushin, Colonel of Life-Guard His Imperial Majesty’s

Cuirassier Regiment, participated in the Polish campaign of
1830-1831. He was awarded orders of St.Stanislaus II class,
St.Vladimir 4th class, St.Anna 3rd class and a badge for 15 year
exemplary service. V.Pushin was later promoted to Major-
General.
The portraits are contained within original oval gilt plaster

frames, V.Pushin’s portrait is mounted with a rectangular brass
plaque inscribed in cursive Cyrillic Vsevolod Pavlovitch Pushin.
Ruzhnikov
50 • PAINTINGS
CARL FRIEDRICH SCHULZ
(1796 – 1866)
GRAND DUKE MIKHAIL PAVLOVICH LIFE-GUARD LANCER
REGIMENT ON MANOEUVRE
1848
oil on canvas
75 x 95 cm
signed and dated lower right:
Carl Schulz / 1848
Completed in 1848, the painting depicts Grand Duke Mikhail

Pavlovich Life-Guard Lancer Regiment in Poland during the
campaign of 1831.
Tsar Nicholas I was a great collector of military paintings, and

Carl Friedrich Schulz was among his favourite artists in the
genre. Grand duke Mikhail Pavlovich life-guard lancer regiment
on manoeuvre is one of a group of paintings portraying the
Russian army commissioned by Nicholas I, and is believed
to have come down to us from the Tsar’s private collection.
Considering himself a connoisseur, the Tsar took a close
interest in the works of art that he commissioned, choosing the
artists himself and tasking them with a specific subject. He was
particularly meticulous over the painter’s attention to details
of uniform, equipment and insignia. As a consequence of his
enthusiasm, he soon accumulated an exceptional collection of
military paintings.
The German painter Carl Friedrich Schulz was educated at

the academies of Dusseldorf and Berlin but took much of the
inspiration for his later work from his time as a soldier in the
Napoleonic Wars, in which he volunteered to serve in 1815.
Having travelled extensively around Europe, Schulz settled
in Berlin in 1830, where he was appointed professor of the
Academy of Arts in 1841 before moving to Russia in 1847.
His exquisite grasp of anatomy and form, as well as his own

experiences in the army, were easily transferred to the military
scenes that preoccupied his later years, and of which this is a
prime example. He was commissioned to paint these by the
Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III as well as Tsar Nicholas I.
Ruzhnikov
52 • PAINTINGS
FEDOR BURKHARDT (1854 – 1918)
SPRING LANDSCAPE
circa 1900
oil on canvas
31.5 x 49 cm
signed in Cyrillic lower right: F. Burkhardt
Fedor Karlovich Burkhardt was an acclaimed master of the

19th century Russian lyrical landscape. Spring Landscape is a
fine example of the artist’s mature style, which is typified by its
appreciation of serene rural landscapes and bodies of water.
The painting’s composition is highly characteristic of the artist’s
work, in which the surfaces of rivers and lakes are brought into
reflective harmony with expansive, cloud-filled skies.
Spring Landscape demonstrates the artist’s mastery of the

‘mood landscape’: a genre that celebrated the serenity and
grandeur of the Russian rural scene, and sought to capture its
fleeting shifts in weather and light. Like his contemporaries
Issac Levitan and Aleksey Savrasov, Burkhardt was a remarkably
talented painter. As the Russian art critic Alexandre Benois
wrote in 1916, two years before Burkhardt’s death, the painter
captured ‘the inexplicable charm of our humble poverty, the
shoreless breadth of our virginal expanses, the festal sadness
of the Russian autumn, and the enigmatic call of the Russian
spring.
Only a small number of Burkhardt’s works survived. The details

of his biography are scant. Burkhardt was born in 1854 in
St.Petersburg into an aristocratic family. From 1889 to 1913,
he was an exhibitor at the St.Petersburg Society of Artists and
the Moscow Society of Art Lovers. Though we know quite little
about the artist’s life, his work is highly developed. Burkhardt
applied to his paintings a highly sophisticated, realist technique,
using fine brushwork to emphasise precision and detail. At the
same time, he captured on the canvas a degree of emotional
sensitivity more often associated with the Impressionists. His
work continues to be popular among discerning collectors.
Ruzhnikov
54 • PAINTINGS
NIKOLAI SAMOKISH (1860 – 1944)
NIGHT RAID
1910’s
oil on wooden panel
49.5 x 37.5 cm
signed lower right: N. Samokish
Provenance
Nikolai Samokish was a highly respected military painter. His skills

are demonstrated on this painting, particularly in its masterful
composition, which conveys a strong sense of narrative tension
through a subtle arrangement of forms.
Samokish’s style was honed from direct experience. In 1887 he

was appointed an official artist by the Defense Ministry and,
together with Ivan Aivazovsky and Franz Roubaud, sketched
military manoeuvres. He visited the Caucasus the following year,
and painted three battle pictures for the Tiflis Museum of Military
History. In 1904-1905 he was the official painter at the Russian-
Japanese war, and later explored themes linked to the Red Army
as a military painter.
Born in the Ukraine in 1860, Nikolai Semenovich Samokish

received academic training at the St.Petersburg Academy of Fine
Arts between 1879 and 1885, and in 1886 was granted a travel
scholarship from the Academy, enabling him to study painting
in Paris. Samokish was well versed in the traditions of military
painting in the late nineteenth century, and sought to expand
the repertoire of Russian military painting through his own work.
Samokish returned to the Academy in 1912 – as a professor
this time. In recognition for his mastery of the genre, he was
appointed director of the Academy’s battle-scene class, where his
students included M. I. Avilov, P. I. Kotov, and G. K. Savitskii.
He based a number of paintings on the heroic feats of the Red

Army during the Civil War of 1918–20. Notable among these
canvases is The Crossing of the Si-vash by the Red Army (1935),
held in the Simferopol Art Museum.
Samokish was also well known as an illustrator: he contributed

173 illustrations to four volumes of Royal Hunting in Russia (1896–
1911), illustrated A Century of the Ministry of War and A History
of the Dragoon Life Guards Regiment (1890’s) and the works of
Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol and Leo Tolstoy.
Works by Nikolai Samokish can be found in such museums

collections as the State Russian Museum in St.Petersburg, the
State Tretyakov Gallery and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine
Arts in Moscow, Kiev national museum of Russian art, Simferopol
Art Museum and others.
Ruzhnikov
56 • PAINTINGS
GASTON LA TOUCHE
(1854 – 1913)
SCÈNE DE THÉÂTRE
circa 1910
oil on canvas
77.5 x 86 cm
signed and inscribed lower left:
Gaston La Touche StC
Provenance
Private collection, France
The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Selina

Baring Maclennan
The painting is a stunning example of the harmonious

decorative style of the artist’s mature period. It show his
trademark delicate brushwork and beautifully vivid palette, and
the subject matter reflects the influence of the Rococo painters,
such as Watteau and Fragonard.
In this wonderful display of colour and technique, in La Touche’s

characteristic style, he depicts a glorious scene set outside in an
open air theatre, popular in the late 19th - early 20th century.
The audience, comprising elegant men and women, grouped
together in front of the stage, are enjoying a piece of theatre
on a beautiful summer’s evening, the women gently fanning
themselves in the warm dusk air. The figure to the right is
perhaps taking part as narrator. The play appears to be set in
the 18th century, according to the players’ costumes and the
men with their tricorn hats.
Gaston La Touche
The Arbor, 1906
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
Ruzhnikov
The painting is signed and inscribed “StC” on the lower left to

denote that it was painted at La Touche’s family home in St
Cloud, on the outskirts of Paris. St Cloud was a wealthy town
where many Parisians owned large villas. The town borders
onto the Parc de St Cloud where the Chateau de Saint-Cloud was
located, which then leads onto Versailles.
Born in St Cloud, near Paris on 29th October 1854, Gaston La

Touche showed an early vocation for an artistic career. From
the age of ten, he spent every available moment of recreation
drawing, and eventually managed to obtain permission from
his parents to take lessons from a Monsieur Paul. His teacher
quickly discovered his natural aptitude and encouraged the
young boy to persevere with his studies.
Interrupted by the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, the lessons

ceased when the family fled to Normandy. La Touche never
received any further formal training, but he came under the
influence of two older painters, one of whom in particular was
to have a profound and far-reaching effect on the development
of European painting. The two were Felix Bracquemond and
Edouard Manet.
La Touche was born into one of the most exciting periods of

Western Art – the Impressionist movement was gathering
momentum and painting as we know it was to change forever.
His early career was influenced by the Realist movement of
which François Bonvin, Jean-François Millet and Pascal Dagnan-
Bouveret were the revered masters.
Heeding Bracquemond’s advice, he showed two works, “Les

Phlox” and “Les Pivoines” in his new style, the former being
immediately purchased by the French State, and is still hanging
in the Musée de la Roche-sur-Yon today. La Touche was so Gaston La Touche
overcome with this official recognition that he made a bonfire of A Water Fountain in the Tuileries, c. 1919
some two hundred paintings in his early style that remained in Musée d’Orsay
his studio. He made another bonfire later in life, shortly before
his untimely death in 1913.
In Europe, La Touche was represented by the most important

dealers of his day: Georges Petit, Galerie Boussod & Valladon,
Manzi Joyant and The Fine Art Society.
Gaston La Touche had three main associations with America

during his lifetime – the first was with the Carnegie Institute in
Pittsburgh, where he exhibited nineteen paintings between the
years 1897 and 1914. The other two associations were more
personal. Through the close friendship between his wife and
Madame Knoedler, La Touche exhibited regularly at M. Knoedler
& Co in New York. This was the same dealer who assisted the
titans of the period with the formation of their collections –
men like Andrew Mellon, Samuel Kress and Henry Clay Frick
to name but a few. The artist’s final American connection was
58 • PAINTINGS
with Cornelia B. Sage Quinton (1876-1936), the Director of the La Touche exhibited regularly at the Salon de la Société Nationale
Albright Knox Gallery in Buffalo, New York. She was the first des Beaux-Arts and the Société des Peintres et Sculpteurs, as
woman director of an American museum. well as at the Société de la Peinture à l’Eau which he had founded
in 1906 and of which he was president. A large exhibition at the
La Touche was extremely well-respected in his lifetime and was Galeries Georges Petit was held in 1908 and another at Boussod
commissioned to paint numerous works for government and and Valadon in The Hague, some two months before he died
public buildings, including a suite of “Quatre Saisons” for the suddenly while working on a painting on 12th July 1913.
Town Hall in Saint-Cloud, a decorative panel for the restaurant
“Le Train bleu” at the Gare de Lyon, The Senate and a large La Touche’s paintings are held in major museum collections
impressive work painted on a gold ground panel for the First internationally, including The State Hermitage Museum in
Class Dining Room of the Liner SS France (1911). This ship was St.Petersburg, Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the National Museum of
the rival to the Titanic and was known as the ‘Chateau of the Western Art in Tokyo, the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, the
Seas’. Art Institute of Chicago, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
and others.
One of his most important friendships was with the poet
and playwright Edmond Rostand (1868-1918), famously
known for his play “Cyrano de Bergerac”. La Touche painted
a number of works for his home The Villa Arnaga in Cambo,
which also housed a number of decorative panels by the Post-
Impressionist artist Henri Martin (1860-1943). Upon the occasion
of La Touche’s first solo exhibition in 1908 at the Galeries
Georges Petit in Paris, Rostand wrote a wonderful poem for
the catalogue. Other important clients included Raymond
Poincaré, the French Prime Minister, Serge Shchoukine, Princess
Tenicheff, M. Kousnitzoff (Odessa), Le Comte de Raczuskie, Mr
Calouste Gulbenkian and the King of Siam.
Gaston La Touche Gaston La Touche

Translation of a Holy Relic, 1899 Dinner at the Casino, c. 1906
The State Hermitage Museum Dayton Art Institute
Ruzhnikov
60 • PAINTINGS
GASTON LA TOUCHE
(1854 – 1913)
LE RÊVE DU POÈTE
circa 1910
oil on canvas
109 x 124.5 cm
signed and inscribed: Stc, on boat end & inscribed: Peint P. M.
Chouanard, lower centre
Provenance
Collection Emile Chouanard (1861-1930), France
Lucie Chouanard Goiran (by descent from the above)
Philip Goiran, USA (by descent from the above)
Exhibitions
Brussels, Galerie des Artistes Français, Gaston La Touche, 18
February 1932-6 March 1932,
no. 8
The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Selina
Baring Maclennan
This delightfully painted scene comprises all that is important

and most well-known of Gaston La Touche’s paintings: the
autumnal setting which was his preferred season; swans at play;
a joyful landscape in the distance with satyrs running through
a meadow; a beautiful woman with her baby and a man (the
poet) happily contemplating his life, whilst cupids tear at the
red autumnal leaves and Pan plays his flute. The present work
was painted at the artist’s home in St Cloud, just outside Paris,
for the great art collector Emile Chouanard, who lived on the
Avenue Montaigne. Chouanard was one of La Touche’s most
important patrons and other works by La Touche from the
collection are found in museums in the United States today.
During his long, prolific career, La Touche was awarded a

number of official commissions for large-scale decorative
schemes at various French ministries. These large canvases
and murals are characterised by glowing colours and broad
brushstrokes. The present work is a smaller version of a
composition belonging to one of such series - a large-scale
decorative program of four pieces that were executed around
1910 for the Parisian Sénat and depict allegorical figures of the
Poet, Painter, Musician the Sculptor.
The painting demonstrates the artist’s stylistic shift after the

1890’s, his move from sober realism, inspired by Zola’s novels,
to idealistic compositions of peaceful parks and fanciful
gardens dotted by fountains, streams and forests populated by
swans, water nymphs and fauns. During this period, La Touche
employed techniques reminiscent of those of his fellow artists
Henri Martin and Henri le Sidaner, by using a palette composed
of carefully studied colour complements and contrasts and
creating multi-coloured surfaces and a magical atmosphere.
Ruzhnikov
62 • PAINTINGS
DELPHIN ENJOLRAS
(1857 – 1945)
LA LECTURE
circa 1900
oil on canvas
55 x 73 cm
signed lower left: D Enjolras
Curled into her chaise longue, a languid young woman spends

the evening with a novel. The listless, hazy beauty of the scene
is characteristic of the artist’s dreamlike compositions. Much of
the effect is, in this composition, achieved through the textures
of the fabric against the subject’s body, its folds falling from her
shoulders, the fine material draping her in a shining nimbus.
Enjolras drew inspiration from the lives of the haute bourgeois

and aristocracy of early twentieth-century French society. The
soft-focus effect achieved by using a single light source to
illuminate a scene realised in his delicate brushstrokes is in
evidence here. This is a portrait of domestic bliss, laced with
erotic potential.
Born in Coucouron, in the Ardèche region of south east France,

Delphin Enjolras went on to study in Paris at the École des
Beaux-Arts under Jean-Léon Gérôme, one of the key exponents
of the Academic style that would dominate the mainstream
of European art in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, and against which radical movements such as
Impressionism and Fauvism opposed themselves. Among his
peers at the Beaux-Arts was Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret, who
became a leading figure in the naturalist school of painting, and
Gustave-Claude-Étienne Courtois. He later entered the École de
Dessin, where he studied under Gaston Gérard.
Academicism, named for the fact that it was the mode taught at
the registered academies, was by the time that Enjolras came
to artistic maturity much the most popular style in France.
Exhibitions such as the Paris Salon and the Salon d’Automne
attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors in the course of
their two month runs, during which paintings were hung grid-
like on the venue’s walls. Enjolras, a regular exhibitor at the
Salon of the Societaire des Artistes Français (to which he was
elected a member in 1901), worked in Paris and in the South of
France, painting portraits, nudes and interiors in oil, watercolour
and pastel. He also created a series of fine landscapes, the
most notable of which can be found in the museums of Puy and
Calvet d’Avignon.
Ruzhnikov
64 • PAINTINGS
DELPHIN ENJOLRAS
(1857 – 1945)
NU DEVANT LE FOYER
circa 1900
oil on canvas
73 x 54 cm
Returned from an evening’s entertainment, the elegant female

subject familiar from other of Enjolras’ paintings reclines in front
of the fire. Lit by a low, warm glow emphasising the contours
of her body and the softness of her skin, she is turned in half-
profile, as if lost in thought. Her glamour, and her physical
allure, is reflected in the soft furnishings on which she relaxes:
the discarded silk gown; the fur rug beneath her feet.
That this work was intended as part of a series is evident in the

recurrence of certain features from other of Enjolras’ works.
Atop the mantelpiece stands a jade vase similar to that in his
Élégante se délassant, and we might understand this painting as
documenting one stage in the evening of a fashionable French
lady belonging to high society. The precisely-rendered interior
demonstrates the artist’s ability to capture the domestic scene
and the composition is typical, too, of Enjolras’ focus on the
nude in the latter part of his career.
Ruzhnikov
66 • PAINTINGS
DELPHIN ENJOLRAS
(1857 – 1945)
ÉLÉGANTE SE DÉLASSANT
circa 1900
oil on canvas
73 x 54 cm
A graceful, long-limbed woman, dressed in the most fashionable

styles of the time, returns from the evening’s entertainment.
Her elegant demeanour is reflected in the accoutrements of
her costume—the bejewelled flapper hat, her diaphanous silk
dress, the narrow curve of her high-heel—and amplified by the
tasteful surroundings in which she relaxes, from the luxurious
rug beneath her feet to the Bourbon-style mahogany cabinet
and the jade vase perched atop the mantelpiece. Caught in the
intimate surroundings of her bedroom, and bathed in the soft,
warm glow of a standing lamp, she embodies a soft, sensuous
ideal of femininity.
The scene captures the decadent, luxurious ambiance of high

society during the Belle Epoque in France. The model’s posture,
reaching down to an arched ankle, her dress slipping off her
shoulder, invests the tableau with a subtle but unmistakeable
erotic thrill. A fine example of the intimate, opulent style of
painting for which Enjolras was best known during his lifetime,
this work of art casts the viewer back in time to the era of the
aesthete and a flamboyant, aristocratic style of living now long
past.
Ruzhnikov
68 • PAINTINGS
FRANZ ROUBAUD It is widely believed the game was first played in the Oxus basin,
(1856 – 1928) now known as the Amu Darya, along a border of Afghanistan.
Expert horsemen, the nomads of northern Afghanistan fought
BUZKASHI Alexander the Great’s triumphant army to a standstill. When the
ancient Greeks first saw these formidable horsemen of Central
1889
Asia, they believed the legend of the centaur (half horse, half
oil on canvas
120 x 180 cm man) had materialized. For any witness of modern Buzkashi,
this reaction is easily understood. Before moving on to India,
signed and dated lower left: Alexander replenished his cavalry with this sturdy breed of
F Roubaud/1889 horse.
Provenance
Private collection, USA Many people associate Buzkashi with the famous Genghis
Khan. The Mongol horsemen were adept at advancing swiftly
Buzkashi ranks among the most important paintings by on enemy campsites and, without dismounting, swooping up
Roubaud in private hands. The large and impressive oil painting sheep, goats, and other pillage at a full gallop. One theory is
is a rare example of the artist’s mature style. that in retaliation, the inhabitants of northern Afghanistan
established a mounted defence against the raids and this
The painting belongs to the key period of the artist’s career. practice might be the direct forbearer of today’s Buzkashi. As
During the late 1880’s - early 1890’s Roubaud created his most speculative as this story on the origins of Buzkashi might be, it
accomplished masterpieces, including the famous Caucasus seems a plausible re-enactment of the campaigns of the great
cycle (1885-1893) and its centerpiece The Storm of Achulgo Mongol and his Golden Horde in Asia Minor.
(the Museum of Graphic Arts in Makhachkala, Daghestan). The
period was marked by Roubaud’s increased official recognition: Franz Alexyeevich Roubaud (1856-1928) - famous Russian battle
he had his first solo exhibitions in St. Petersburg (1898), Paris and genre painter. Born in Odessa in 1856 to a Catholic family of
(1891), and Madrid (1892). In 1890 he was admitted to the French descent. Since 1865, he studied at the Odessa Drawing
Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts and gained several prestigious School, and since 1877 at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts.
awards.. Most artworks from this period are in museums (The
Russian Museum, St.Petersburg; Museum-panorama The Having returned to Russia, Franz Roubaud taught at the Imperial
Borodino Battle, Moscow; P. S. Gamsatova Dagestan Museum of Academy of Fine Arts in St.Petersburg. In 1913 he left Russia and
Fine Arts, Machachkala; A. Tacho Godi Dagestan State Museum, settled in Munich, where he lived for the rest of his life.
Machachkala; Museum of History of Azerbaijan, Baku).
The first success came to Roubaud in 1880’s when he painted 18
Buzkashi or kokpar (literally «goat bashing» in Turkic, buz is monumental canvases depicting the conquest of Caucasus by
Turkic for «goat» and kashi means «bashing») is Central Asian the Russian Empire.
sport in which horse-mounted players attempt to drag a goat
carcass toward a goal. Buzkashi is played amongst Kyrgyz, Roubaud is one of the most celebrated Russian battle painters,
Pashtuns, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Turkmens. a master of grandiose size canvases. His most famous works
are the Defense of Sebastopol, 1902-1904 and Panorama of the
Battle of Borodino, 1912.
Roubaud’s paintings are in the collection of the Pinacotheque

Museum in Munich, The State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the
Russian Museum in St.Petersburg and many others.
Ruzhnikov
70 • PAINTINGS
KONSTANTIN MAKOVSKY
(1839 - 1915)
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST’S WIFE
oil on canvas
214 x 110 cm
1900
signed lower left: K Makovsky 1900
Provenance
Private collection, Europe
Sale Blanchet & Joron-Derem, Paris, November 10, 2000, lot 63
Exhibitions
Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1900
Literature
Catalogue illustre officiel de l’exposition decennale des beax-
arts, Paris 1900
L. Greder, Loisirs d’art: mélanges, la peinture étrangère à
l’Exposition de 1900, Paris, 1900
W. Salmond, R.E. Martin, W. Zeisler, Konstantin Makovsky: The
Tsar’s Painter in America and Paris, Hillwood, 2016, illustrated
Konstantin Egorovich Makovsky left a significant artistic legacy.

He worked as a genre painter, was a master of history painting
and was also a skilled landscape artist. However, Makovsky is
especially renowned for his elegant female salon portraits.
Makovsky frequently painted women he was close to. He

was happily married three times. Maria Alexeevna Matavtina
(1869-1919) was his third wife. The artist met her in 1889 in
Paris, where he kept a studio. As a result, Makovsky divorced
his second wife, Iulia Pavlovna, in 1892 and remarried in 1898.
Maria Alekseevna was thirty years younger than him.
From the 1890s, Maria Alekseevna became the artist’s favourite

model. Her portraits were frequently shown at various
exhibitions. She posed for such famous paintings as Romeo and
Juliet (1895, Odessa Art Museum) and Ophelia.
The present portrait of Maria Matavtina is painted in the best

tradition of classical formal European portraiture, imparting
the desire of a maestro to compete with the Old Masters. It
is not by chance that Makovsky’s contemporaries compared
him to van Dyck while the art critics remarked that ‘His colours
sing, like those of Rubens.’ As Dr Elena Nesterova writes, ‘his
canvases...combined the formal and the intimate, the majestic
and the sentimental... [They] were remarkable for their superb
technique, excellent detail (...) rich and decorative colours,
the freedom and energy of the brushwork’ (K.Makovsky,
St.Petersburg, 2003, p. 268).
Ruzhnikov
Konstantin Makovsky
Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, Maria Alekseevna
Makovskaya, circa 1900
Private Collection
72 • PAINTINGS
Makovsky’s female portraits constitute a body of superb In 1851 Konstantin entered the Moscow School of Painting,
painting, with a wonderful sense of detail and of its place in the Sculpture and Architecture where he soon became the top
overall composition of the work, a richness and ornamentation student. His teachers were Karl Bryullov and Vasily Tropinin.
of colouring, a free and temperamental brushwork and an Makovsky’s inclinations to Romanticism and decorative effects
eroticism, which although not overt, was nevertheless expressed can be explained by the influence of Briullov.
in the very presentation of the image. This portrait of the artist’s
third wife, Maria Matavtina, possesses all of these characteristics In 1858 Makovsky entered the Imperial Academy of Arts in
to the highest degree. St.Petersburg. From 1860 he participated in the exhibitions of
Academia with paintings such as Curing of the Blind (1860) and
Konstantin Yegorovich Makovsky (1839—1915) was an Agents of the False Dmitry kill the son of Boris Godunov (1862).
influential Russian painter, affiliated with the Peredvizhniki In 1863 Makovsky, together with the other 13 students eligible
(Wanderers). Konstantin was born in Moscow as the older son to participate in the competition for the Large Gold Medal of
of a painter Yegor Ivanovich Makovsky. His brothers Vladimir Academia, refused to paint on the set topic in Scandinavian
and Nikolai and his sister Alexandra also went on to become mythology and instead left Academia without a formal diploma.
painters.
In 1863 he joined the St.Petersburg Artel of Artists led by Ivan
Kramskoy, the forerunner of the Wanderers and the most
potent symbol of the break with classical tradition. From 1870
he was a founding member of the Society for Traveling Art
Exhibitions also known as Peredvizhniki (‘Wanderers’). As a
member of the Wanderers, Makovsky was most notable for
his new subject matter, namely the common people. However,
he split with the society in 1883 and by 1891 had become
a member of the newly formed and more Salon-orientated
St.Petersburg Society of Artists, of which he was subsequently
to be president. He exhibited his works on both the Academia
exhibitions of the Wanderers.
A significant change in his style occurred after traveling to Egypt

and Serbia in the mid-1870’s. His interests changed from social
and psychological problems to the artistic problems of colours
and shape.
In the 1880’s Makovsky became a fashioned author of portraits

and historical paintings. He exhibited in Vienna, Dresden and
Berlin, and settled in Paris, where his work was shown at the
Salon de Paris. In 1889, for his paintings Death of Ivan the
Terrible, The Judgement of Paris, and Demon and Tamara he
was awarded a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle and
made a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur. He was one of the
most highly appreciated and highly paid Russian artists of the
time.
Ruzhnikov
74 • PAINTINGS
NIKOLAI KHARITONOV (1880 – 1944)
RELIGIOUS PROCESSION AT THE PSKOV PECHERSKY MONASTERY
circa 1900
oil on canvas
63.5 x 80 cm
signed in Cyrillic lower left: N. Kharitonov
Provenance
Private collection
Sale Sotheby’s London The Russian Sale: Thursday, December
14, 1995, Lot 209
Private collection, London
The Pskov Pechersky Monastery of the Caves is located 50

kilometres west of the city of Pskov: the caves were originally
used by religious hermits. Nikolai Kharitonov brought a
profound understanding of the religious and cultural world
of monastic life to this painting, having spent part of his early
life in training to be a monk at the orthodox monastery in the
island of Valaam in northwest Russia. Primarily known for his
portraits and genre scenes, Kharitonov also painted numerous
exceptional landscapes of the Russian North, the Crimea and
the Caucasus.
Kharitonov’s focus here is not on individual characters so

much as the grander significance of the crowd itself. The loose,
expressive brushwork suggests the influence of Impressionism.
Ruzhnikov
76 • PAINTINGS
LOUIS ABEL-TRUCHET
(1857 – 1918)
FÊTE FORAINE À MONTMARTRE
1911
oil on canvas
89 x 116.5 cm
signed and dated lower left:
Abel Truchet 1911
Provenance
Private collection, Paris
Exhibitions
Exposition Universelle et Internationale, Ghent, 6 April - 31
October 1913, no. 167
Fête Foraine à Montmartre is a perfect example of Louis Abel-

Truchet’s richly painted Parisian scenes. In this painting, the
viewer’s eyes are drawn to the brightly lit spinning carousel and
the majestic facade of the Sacré-Coeur, which shines from the
top of the hill.
Born in Versailles in 1857, Abel-Truchet began his career

at the prestigious Academie Julian in Paris. Alongside other
notable artists, including Henri Matisse and André Derain, he
studied there under the tuition of Julien Lefebvre and Benjamin
Constant. From 1891, he began to exhibit at numerous salons,
including the famous Salon d’Automne, the Salon des Artistes
Français and the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Аbel-Truchet
developed an Impressionistic style, using vigorous brushwork to
depict the excitement and atmosphere of modern life.
Abel-Truchet is well-known for his elegant paintings capturing

the life of Belle Époque Paris with its cafés, theatres and shops.
Like so many other artists, he was particularly drawn to the
artist’s quarter of Montmartre, which characterised the artistic
life of the city: his images of cafe-concerts, the Place Pigalle,
the Folies-Bergère and the Moulin Rouge have become part of
popular culture through widespread reproductions.
Works by the artist can be found in major museum collections Louis Abel-Truchet
such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Мusée Le Gaumont Palace illuminé dans la nuit
Carnavalet, Paris, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Pau, France, Musée de Musée Carnavalet, Paris
Grenoble, France, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Le Petit
Palais, Paris, and the Smithsonian Museums, Washington, DC.
Ruzhnikov
78 • PAINTINGS
ARMAND GUILLAUMIN (1841-1927)
PAYSAGE DE LA CREUSE
circa 1900
oil on canvas
72 x 91 cm
signed lower left: Guillaumin
Provenance
Private Collection
A colleague and friend of Pissarro, Cezanne, Gauguin, and later

Van Gogh, Guillaumin’s contribution to Impressionist landscape
painting have long recognized by scholars. Paysage de la
Creuse is an example Guillaumin’s mature proto-Fauve style,
characterized by the expressive use of colour and constructive
brushstroke. The composition bears the stamp of Guillaumin’s
friendship with Van Gogh, who in the late-1880’s alerted him to In 1883, Guillaumin befriended Paul Signac, and then Georges
radical chromatic innovations of the Pont-Aven group. Seurat. In the following years he began to work in the pointillist
style. In 1886 he became close with Vincent van Gogh, with
The painting depicts a view of the Creuse Valley, one of whose work his own has certain affinities.
Guillaumin’s favourite places, which he had frequented since the
early 1890’s, being known as the unofficial leader of the so called Towards the end of his life, the vigour of his brushwork and his
Crozant School. Guillaumin was one of many prominent artists bright palette brought him close to the Fauves.
who admired the picturesque landscapes of Creuse. It was here
in 1889 that Claude Monet conceived his first true series, paving In the 1890’s Guillaumin’s prospects improved when he was
way for the artistic method that three decades later was to find taken up by the dealer Auguste Portier, who had commenced
its most accomplished expression in the famed Waterlilies. his career with Durand-Ruel. Financial stability allowed him
to travel: he spent some time in Saint-Palais, in 1893-1913 he
Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin was born in Paris in 1841. He worked in the Creuse, Crozant, Agay, Auvergne, Louin, Rouen,
studied at the Académie Suisse, where he met Paul Cézanne and Holland. With his death in 1927, Guillaumin was the last
and Camille Pissarro who were to become his lifelong friends. survivor of the Impressionist group, of which he was one of the
Their influences are clear, especially in his early works, which most faithful members.
act as a basis from which Guillaumin developed his own mature
style of post-impressionist landscape painting. Together with Guillaumin’s works can be found in major museum collections
Pissarro and Cézanne, Guillaumin exhibited at the first Salon des around the world, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Refusés in 1863. He participated in six of the eight Impressionist Musée d’Orsay, the State Hermitage, the National Gallery of Art
exhibitions: 1874, 1877, 1880, 1881, 1882 and 1886. in Washington, the Art Institute of Chicago, Thyssen-Bornemisza
Guillaumin’s early reputation was based upon his Museum, Neue Pinakothek in Munich and many others.
accomplishment as a draughtsman, his style characterised by
the dynamism and economy of his line. He was quickly accepted
into the circle of Emile Zola and Edouard Manet, a mark of
acceptance into Paris’ flourishing, bohemian artistic circles. In his
1880 article ‘Le Naturalisme au Salon’, in which he continued his
efforts to promote the Impressionists as the real artists of their
day, Zola wrote that, ‘Pissarro, Sisley, Guillaumin followed in the
footsteps of Claude Monet … they committed themselves to
faithfully rendering the corners of nature in Paris, under the true
light of the sun, without recoiling from the most unexpected
effects of colour.’
Ruzhnikov
80 • PAINTINGS
PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR (1841-1919)
VUE DU MOURILLON
1890
oil on canvas
46 x 56 cm
signed lower right: Renoir
Provenance
Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris
Private Collection, Switzerland
Sale: Galerie Motte, Geneva, 27th November 1965, lot 71
Purchased at the above sale by the late owner
Exhibitions
An Exhibition of Paintings from European Collections in aid of the
Renoir Foundation, London, Marlborough Fine Art, Renoir, 1956,
no. 11, illustrated in the catalogue
This work will be included in the forthcoming Renoir Catalogue critique
being prepared by the Wildenstein Institute and established from
the archives of François Daulte, Durand-Ruel, Venturi, Vollard and
Wildenstein.
The late nineteenth century was a particularly prosperous
This work will be included in the second supplement to the Catalogue time for Renoir, during which he began to achieve a degree of
raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles de Pierre-Auguste economic success. By this time, Renoir had become recognised
Renoir being prepared by Guy Patrice Dauberville and Floriane as one of the foremost Impressionist painters and received
Dauberville, published by Bernheim-Jeune.
a significant degree of financial support from the dealer Paul
Vue du Mourillon is a serene and evocative vision embodies Durand-Ruel. This newfound financial freedom allowed him
the fresh spontaneity of Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s later plein- to paint en plein-air with greater frequency, finding that the
air painting. Painted in 1890, the present work depicts a lush freshness of natural light was much more desirable to studio
landscape in the Southern Mediterranean with rich green work.Vue du Mourillon is a vivid and bright composition created
foliage, feathery vibrant blue brushstrokes and a sailboat visible during this period of artistic growth. During this time, Renoir
in the distance. Unlike Camille Pissarro and Claude Monet who travelled to the south of France annually, motivated in part by
often depicted labourers in landscapes, Renoir preferred to his weakening health but also in search of fresh inspiration for
focus on scenes of leisure. Discussing Renoir’s landscapes from new paintings. In a letter to Durand-Ruel, towards the end of
this period and how they helped to shape the rest of his career, one of his stays in the Mediterranean, Renoir comments on the
John House comments that Renoir’s paintings of the early 1890’s glorious weather and his newfound delight in plein-air painting:
were characterised by a ‘softer more supple handling... This ‘I am cramming myself with sunshine!’ He continued, ‘This
harmonious interrelation of man and nature became a central landscape painter’s craft is very difficult for me, but these three
theme in Renoir’s late work’ (Renoir (exhibition catalogue), months will have taken me further than a year in the studio.
Hayward Gallery, London; Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Afterwards I’ll come back and be able to take advantage at home
Paris & Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1985-86, p. 262). of my experiments’ (quoted in Barbara Ehrlich White, Renoir: His
Life, Art, and Letters, New York, 1984, p. 191).
The present work was acquired from Galerie Motte in 1965 by

Annemarie Düringer and has remained in her family’s collection
until the present day. A Swiss actress of extraordinary beauty,
Düringer was a member of the prestigious Vienna Burgtheater
where she was known for her portrayal of Queen Elisabeth in
Schiller’s Maria Stuart.
Ruzhnikov
82 • PAINTINGS
HENRY MORET (1856 – 1913)
ÎLE DE HOUAT
1893
oil on canvas
73 x 60 cm
signed, dated and titled lower left:
‘Île de Houat. Henry Moret. 1893
Provenance
Arthur Tooth & Sons, London (no. A6969);
Île de Houat is a fine example of Henry Moret’s Pont-Aven

school period, and testifies to his admiration for Paul Gauguin.
Although he was a native of Normandy and received an
academic training in Paris, Henry Moret spent almost the
entirety of his working life in Brittany. In 1888 he came to Pont-
Aven, which had by then been an artist’s colony for over twenty
years. Gauguin had just returned there from Martinique to
embark on a second stay at the Pension Gloanec, where he
was joined also by Emile Bernard, Charles Laval, and Ernest de
Chamaillard
Moret’s earliest artistic training took place in the Breton town of

Loreint under Ernest Corroller, a disciple of Corot and Courbet
who introduced him to plein air painting. Later as a student in
the Ecôle des Beaux-Arts in Paris, his style betrayed leanings
towards the Barbizon School of landscape painting. Throughout
this period he continued to spend time in Brittany, and his first
submission to the Salon in 1880 was entitled Marée Basse; Côte
de Bretagne. In the ensuing years he led a peripatetic existence
exploring the coastline of Brittany, while still exhibited at the
Paris Salon. The present painting depicts a view from a small before it, but think more of creating than the actual result’
island off the southern coast of Brittany. (Letter to Schuffenecker, quoted in Gauguin and the Pont-Aven
Île de Houat, bears all the hallmarks of the artist’s Pont-Aven Group, exhib. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1966, 7 January – 13
period, which lasted from 1888 until the mid-1890’s. In its February 1966, p. 8). In Île de Houat, Moret simplifies the view
palette and its handling of the medium, it compares closely with to give a condensed account of his motif. Meanwhile, thanks to
The Island of Raguenez, Brittany. The abbreviated description his handling of the brush, the surface of the canvas is animated
of the motif in both of these paintings points to Moret’s by a network of shimmering strokes of colour that emphasise
adherence to the practices of Synthetism, a frequent subject of the medium and concurrently diminish the pictorial content.
conversation at the Pension Gloanec in the summer of 1888. Together with the simplification of form, these qualities are
According to this technique, the artist was to identify the salient closely comparable with Gauguin’s Seascape with Cow on the
characteristics of a motif and deploy these in order to capture Edge of a Cliff, which depicts a scene close to Le Pouldu.
the essence of his subject. Influenced by Japanese woodcut By remaining in Brittany throughout his mature career,
prints, Gauguin also advocated description of a motif by means Henry Moret somewhat isolated himself from the art world.
of unmodulated colour instead of modelling, and tilting the Nevertheless, in 1895 he entered into an agreement with
perspective sharply up or downward. The result was an artistic the Paris dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who successfully sold his
accent considered suitable for the depiction of rural subjects paintings to collectors in Europe and America.
and savage nature.
His paintings are held in such collections as Musée d’Orsay, the
Gauguin, a charismatic and persuasive figure, believed that Hermitage, the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, the
the painter should not ‘copy from nature too much. Art is an Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Museums and Galleries of
abstraction; derive this abstraction from nature while dreaming Wales, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and many others.
Ruzhnikov
84 • PAINTINGS
HENRY MORET (1856 – 1913)
LES GABELOUS (THE CUSTOMS OFFICERS)
1891
oil on canvas
48 x 61 cm
Henry Moret (18)91
In this painting, Moret depicts Customs Officers in their navy

uniform with red striped trousers perched atop the cliffs and
rocky coastal outcrops which are typical
of the rugged Breton landscape. Brittany has 1300 kilometers of
coastal paths. These pathways were created during the French
Revolution by the customs authorities for surveillance of the
coast and to combat smuggling and the pillaging of shipwrecks.
Day and night they scoured the coastline, rifles at the ready,
on the lookout for illicit unloading of salt, tobacco, coffee, or
weapons.
The Breton coast, due to its rugged terrain with thousands of

inlets and its sheer length was a favourite site for illegal landings
of a vast range of smuggled goods. Thus, until the beginning
of the 20th century, hundreds of customs officers walked the
coastal paths day and night in all types of weather, seeking to
intercept any illegal smuggling of goods.
Today, the pathways once used by the customs officers are

protected sites, and are now registered hiking trails for walkers
and ramblers. The trail meanders along the Breton coast
from Saint-Nazaire to Mont-Saint- Michel, offering spectacular
maritime landscapes. It passes by the Guerande salt marshes
and the Bay of Douarnenez, and further north, the jagged reefs
of the Coast of the Abers.
Ruzhnikov
86 • PAINTINGS
FERNAND MORIN (1878-1937)
LE PORT ANIMÉ
circa 1900
oil on canvas
73 x 60 cm
Fernand Morin - French Post-Impressionist artist, known

principally for his landscapes and industrial cityscapes.
Fernand Morin was born in 1878 in St-Aubin de Baubigné (Deux-

Sèvres) in Western France. The artist belonged to the so-called
Pont-Aven school - the group of painters associated with Paul
Gauguin in Brittany. From 1906 the artist exhibited at the Salon
des Indépendants.
Ruzhnikov
88 • PAINTINGS
LÉON DE SMET
(1881 – 1966)
SOUS-BOIS
1909
oil on canvas
100 x 140 cm
Leon De Smet 1909
Exhibitions
Kunstenaars zien Latem, Latemse Kunstkring, Sint-Martens-
Latem, 1974,
no. 72
Leon De Smet 1881-1966, Museum Leon De Smet, Sint-Martens-
Latem, 1991
Léon de Smet was born in Ghent, Belgium, in 1881. He received

his artistic training at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp,
and in 1901 held his first exhibition in the city. He exhibited
regularly throughout the 1900’s, in Antwerp, Brussels and
Ghent. In 1909, he represented Belgium at the Venice Biennale
and the following year his work was included in an international
exhibition in Brussels alongside Pierre Bonnard and Édouard
Vuillard. Léon was the younger brother of Gustave de Smet, who
was also a painter.
In 1906 Léon joined the Second Group of Saint-Martens-Latem,

an artists’ colony including the painters Maurice Sys, Frits van
den Berghe, Constant Permeke, and his brother Gustave de
Smet. His time in Saint-Martens-Latem proved highly influential:
it was here that de Smet developed the neo-impressionistic
techniques, combining fragmented pictorial surfaces with bold
colour combinations, that underpinned his mature style.
De Smet moved to London in 1914; he lived there throughout

the war. Though motivated by necessity, de Smet’s relocation
had a hugely beneficial impact on his career. The painter began
to move in literary circles, whose members included George
Bernard Shaw, John Galsworthy and Joseph Conrad, and
exhibited paintings in the Royal Academy. De Smet returned
to Belgium in 1920 and, throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s,
continued to exhibit widely in Europe and America. In 1953 the
Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent honoured the 72-year-old artist
by staging a large solo exhibition of his work; the gallery now
contains a number of de Smet’s canvases.
His paintings are also held in the Groeningemuseum, Bruges,
the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, and the Indianapolis
Museum of Art.
Ruzhnikov
90 • PAINTINGS
LÉON DE SMET
(1881 – 1966)
AU BORD DU BOIS
1909
oil on canvas
75 x 80 cm
Leon De Smet 1909
Provenance
Sale De Vuyst, Old Masters, Modern and Contemporary Art, 14
May 2011, lot 111
Dating from the period in which Léon de Smet was living in

an artists’ commune in Saint-Martens-Latem, in his native
Belgium, the present painting displays the influence of French
developments in Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist thought
on the artist’s work. Chosen to represent Belgium at the Venice
Biennale the same year he produced this canvas, de Smet
was keenly aware of artistic developments on the Continent.
Particularly pertinent to this canvas is the Impressionist
fascination with shadow and half-shadow; their infinite nuances
of colour and shade. De Smet demonstrates his mastery of the
concept in his subtle evocation of the foreground grass, setting
the complementary colours of red and green, vermillion and
emerald, against each other.
Ruzhnikov
92 • PAINTINGS
LÉON DE SMET
(1881 – 1966)
NATURE MORTE AUX FLEURS, COQUILLAGES ET ÉVENTAIL
1914
oil on burlap
72.1 x 92 cm
Léon de Smet, 1914
Provenance
Generous application of paint combines with a highly focused

composition in this richly textured still life. Saturated in tones
of intense red, this is a highly controlled canvas – the tabletop
provides a readymade pictorial device for drawing together the
disparate elements into a unified whole, strongly demonstrative
of the more decorative style developed by de Smet during the
1910’s. The Impressionistic picture surface, in which applications
of impasto oil appear to vibrate against narrow patches of bare
canvas, is brought into tension with the painting’s more strongly
linear aspects.
Léon de Smet moved from Antwerp to London in 1914 at the

outbreak of the First World War. Among the first works created
by the artist in England, Nature Morte aux Fleurs, Coquillages
et Éventail demonstrates his use of burlap backing. A rougher,
darker surface than the more traditional canvas fabric, burlap
challenged the artist to adapt his technique. He developed a
dense yet exuberant style through the 1910’s that prefigured the
more decorative work of the following decade. As we can see on
this canvas, the burlap encouraged de Smet to experiment with
a looser painting technique that greatly enhanced the vibrancy
of his images, while losing none of his underlying sense of
pictorial form.
Ruzhnikov
94 • PAINTINGS
LÉON DE SMET
(1881 – 1966)
COUCHER DE SOLEIL SUR LE VILLAGE
circa 1920
oil on canvas
74 x 106 cm
signed lower left: Léon de Smet
Provenance
Private collection, Belgium
Literature
P. Boyens, H. Bosschaert, Léon De Smet, 1994, pp. 153-156, 246
Though painted in a recognisably expressive mode, the artist’s

generous application of paint, combined with a palette of
astonishing intensity, lends this painting a luminous, almost
visionary quality. While the painting captures a traditional scene
of natural beauty – the sun descending through
a cloudless sky, casting warm light on a peaceful village – the
central positioning of the sun, the vertical motifs of the trees
and church tower, and the sharply veering road produce an
image that subverts the expectations of the genre. Rather than
evoke the soft, sensual mood of an idealised evening, the artist
here asserts the almost violent forcefulness of sunlight.
The painting dates from the period in which the artist had
begun to experiment with burlap, following his move to London
in 1914, on the outbreak of World War One. While de Smet’s
use of discrete dashes of impasto colour do indeed recall
Post-Impressionism, he allows the rough texture of the burlap
beneath to ‘breathe’ through the image, producing a painting
that appears to vibrate with light. While de Smet’s compositional
techniques and subject matter recall his French contemporaries,
such as Henri Martin, the density – and intensity – of his
technique are highly distinctive.
Ruzhnikov
96 • PAINTINGS
NIKOLAI BOGDANOV-BELSKY
(1868 – 1945)
BY LANTERN LIGHT
circa 1900
oil on canvas
76.8 x 63.5 cm
signed lower left:
N. Bogdanoff-Belsky
Provenance
Sale Sotheby’s Arcade, Old Master & 19th c. European Pntgs,
Drws. & Wcs, December 9, 1988, lot 396
Private collection
Exhibitions
New York and other cities, Grand Central Palace, The Russian Art
Exhibition, 1924
Literature
The Russian Art Exhibition (exhibition catalogue), New York,
1924
Bogdanov-Belsky is best known for his charming genre paintings

that capture the vitality of Russian children. Peasant children
was always the main theme of his art. As he once remarked:
‘Children have always fascinated me; I have dedicated my life to
them and still do’.
Painted in an Impressionist manner, By Lantern Light is a

fine example of Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky’s later work. The Soon after the Revolution Bogdanov-Belsky left Russia and
picture plane is composed of a series of swiftly applied strokes settled in Latvia. Since 1921 he lived and worked exclusively in
of colour, focused on a humble moment of innocence and Riga.
intimacy.
The artist’s works are well represented in the major Russian
Nikolai Petrovich Bogdanov-Belsky was born in 1868 in the museums including the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the
village of Shitiki in the Smolensk Province, Russia. In 1884-1889 Russian Museum and the State Hermitage in St.Petersburg, the
he studied painting at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, Museum of Fine Arts in Perm.
and Architecture under the renowned painters Vasilii Polenov
and Vladimir Makovsky, and then, in 1894, at the Imperial
Academy of Fine Arts in St.Petersburg under Ilya Repin. In the
late 1890’s Bogdanov-Belsky decided to continue his artistic
education at the Colarossi Academy, a famous private studio in
Paris attended by Gauguin and Modigliani, among others.
Bogdanov-Belsky was a prominent member of several groups
of artists. These included the Peredvizhniki (or ‘Wanderers’) – an
influential group of Russian Realist painters who rejected the
restraints of the Academy – and the Arkhip Kuindzhi Society,
of which he was founding member and, from 1913 to 1918,
chairman.
Ruzhnikov
98 • PAINTINGS
STANISLAV ZHUKOVSKY
(1873 – 1944)
INTERIOR OF THE SHEREMETYEVO PALACE IN KUSKOVO,
MOSCOW
1917
oil on canvas
84 x 109 cm
signed, dated and titled lower right:
‘Moskva, Kuskovo, S. Zukovski, 1917’
Provenance
Private collection, Poland
Sale Butterfields, San-Francisco, USA, May 16, 2001
Exhibitions
The Society for Traveling Exhibitions (Tovarishchestvo
peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok), Petrograd, 1918
Solo exhibition, Warsaw, 1923-1924 (supposedly)
Stanislav Zhukovsky
A celebrated Russian landscape artist of the Polish descent, Kuskovo, 1917
Zhukovsky was one of the leading Russian Impressionist Warsaw National Gallery
painters. He turned to interiors in the second decade of the
twentieth century, embarking on a cycle of paintings depicting
Russia’s grand estates.
1892, where he studied under Isaac Levitan, Valentin Serov, and
Vasily Polenov. Prior to his graduation in 1899, the Tretyakov
The 1916-17 series of interiors of Kuskovo, the famous summer
Gallery acquired one of his paintings, entitled ‘Moonlit Night’. He
estate of the Sheremetev family, is considered to be his best
exhibited with the Wanderers from 1896 to 1917—participating
work in this genre. Built in the mid-18th century several miles to
in the famous ‘World of Art’ exhibition in 1902—and became
the east of Moscow, the Palace of Kuskovo is one of the oldest
a member in 1904. He opened a private art studio where he
and most beautiful summer residences in Russia. According
tutored celebrated avant-garde artist Liubov Popova and the
to the design of its owner, Count Pyotr Sheremetev, Kuskovo
revolutionary poet and painter Vladimir Mayakovsky. In the early
was intended to be comparable in size and beauty to the Tsar’s
twentieth century, he developed an interest in the Impressionist
own residences. In a letter addressed to Dmitri Sheremetev,
movement, which was reflected in his works.
Zhukovsky betrays his fascination with interiors: ‘Would you be
kind enough to allow me to paint in your houses in Ostafievo
After the 1917 Revolution, he joined the Art Section of the
and Kuskovo? I am a great admirer of the old times … Here they
People’s Commissariat of the Enlightenment and was appointed
speak so clearly and are so wonderfully, carefully preserved. I
to the Art Committee of the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. One
would like to do some interiors of this priceless memorial to a
of his paintings was exhibited at the First Russian Art Exhibition
wonderful era. Unfortunately, they have been disappearing so
in Berlin in 1922. He moved back to his native Poland in 1923,
rapidly in recent times and there are few genuinely cultured
where he died in a concentration camp shortly after the Warsaw
and refined people who can appreciate these sacred places and
uprising in 1944. Most of Zhukovsky’s later paintings were
are not converting them to factories and using as firewood the
destroyed.
parks where Eugene Onegin once walked.’
Works by the artist can still be found in major museum
The present painting belongs to the same series of the
collections such as the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the Russian
Sheremetyevo Palace interiors as the work now in the Warsaw
Museum in St.Petersburg, the Warsaw National Gallery and the
National Gallery.
Galleria Nazionale in Rome.
Stanislav Zhukovsky was one of the most revered landscape
artists in Russia. Born in the city of Grodno in 1873, he enrolled
at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in
Ruzhnikov
100 • PAINTINGS
GUSTAVE LOISEAU (1865-1935)
BORDS DE LA SEINE
1913
oil on canvas
73 x 92 cm
G Loiseau 1913
Provenance
Durand Ruel, Paris (acquired from the artist 7 November 1913,
stock no. 10456/13190, photograph no. 77976)
Private collection, France (acquired from the above 1 February
1985)
Private collection, Brittany (acquired before 1996)
This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné
being prepared by Didier Imbert.
Bords de la Seine exemplifies Gustave Loiseau’s lifelong

fascination with the Seine and its tributaries. Highly
characteristic of Loiseau’s en plein air technique, the present
work captures the movement of the water, the stillness of the
trees, and the enveloping mist of the river in the early evening
light.
Although taught by Paul Gauguin, it was Loiseau’s close friend

Claude Monet who would ultimately have the stronger influence
over the artist. Having signed an exclusive contract with Monet’s
influential dealer Paul Durand-Ruel in 1897, Loiseau was able
to travel extensively throughout Normandy. Journeying down
the Seine from source to mouth provided Loiseau with the
inspiration for his most significant and successful body of work.
Bords de la Seine is a particularly intense example of his directly

observed studies of the river. The palette of soft lavenders and
lilacs, muted greens and delicate white create a painting that is
as much an expression of a mood as a depiction of a place. It
is a particularly subtle demonstration of the reason behind the
artist’s reputation as the ‘historiographer of the Seine’.
Claude Monet
Morning on the Seine near Giverny, 1897
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Ruzhnikov
102 • PAINTINGS
BORDS DE L’EURE
1920
oil on canvas
72 x 92 cm
G Loiseau 1920
Provenance
Durand-Ruel, Paris
Galerie des Granges, Geneva
Private collection, New York (acquired in 1983)
To be included in the Loiseau Catalogue raisonné being
prepared by Didier Imbert
Loiseau was born in Paris. He was apprenticed to a decorator,

a job he particularly disliked, but his interest in art (especially
landscape painting) grew when his parents moved back to
their hometown of Pontoise in 1884. This town near Paris had
Loiseau returned to Paris in 1891 where he began to exhibit his
an important place in French painting at the time, its environs
work, showing first at the Fifth Exhibition of Impressionist and
having recently been depicted extensively by Camille Pissarro
Symbolist Painters.
and Paul Cézanne, the former having a home there.
For the rest of his life, he travelled extensively, painting in the
The son of a Parisian butcher, Loiseau announced his intentions
Dordogne, Dieppe and on the banks of the Seine. Loiseau
to become an artist in 1880, aged just 15. However, it was
also painted an important series of works of Paris that form
not until 1887, when Loiseau received a legacy from his
a fascinating development to the first Impressionist views of
grandmother, that he was able to give up his job as a decorator
Monet and Pissarro. In these works, he took a high viewpoint
and devote his life to painting. After a move to Paris, his first
and concentrated on the contrast between the small figures
teachers included such illustrious names as Jean-Louis Forain,
below and the large buildings, often shown with obvious
but Loiseau did not appreciate the more academic tendencies
advertising hoardings. Although he died in Paris in 1935, his last
such artists promoted. It was not until a move to Pont-Aven in
years were spent in Pontoise, where his introduction to painting
1890 and his meeting with Henry Moret and Maxime Maufra
had begun. Today Loiseau is recognised as a significant figure
that he found his style. He learnt a great deal first hand from
in Post-Impressionism. His paintings are held in numerous
Gauguin, but his work also shows a debt to Alfred Sisley and
public museum collections globally, including the Metropolitan
Pissarro. After a period of pointillist experimentation, he
Museum of Art, New York, the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and the
re-discovered his pure landscape ideals painting in a Post-
Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England.
Impressionist manner directly from nature.
Ruzhnikov
104 • PAINTINGS
BRUME SUR L’EURE
1919
oil on canvas
73.7 x 92.2 cm
signed lower left: G. Loiseau
Provenance
Gustave Loiseau, one of the most poetic and sensitive of the

Post-Impressionists, was fascinated by rivers and watercourses.
Returning to the subject again and again throughout his career,
they provided inspiration for his finest canvases. Particularly
successful were the paintings that achieved a harmonious
marriage of water and sky, reflection and atmosphere, as
demonstrated here.
Painted in with Gustave Loiseau’s own characteristic style,

in which the surface of the canvas is painted using a series
of cross-hatching marks, the work, at the same time, shows
the influence of such masters as Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley,
Camille Pissarro and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.
Ruzhnikov
106 • PAINTINGS
Ruzhnikov
108 • PAINTINGS
GUSTAVE LOISEAU (1865 – 1935)
FALAISES D’YPORT
1921
oil on canvas
61 x 74 cm
signed on reverse and dated 1921
signed lower right
Provenance
The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Didier

Imbert.
From 1897, when Loiseau received a commission from the

influential dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, he spent much time
travelling in the west of France, throughout Île-de-France and
Saint-Cyr du Vaudreuil in l’Eure, where he owned a house.
During the first two decades of the twentieth century, he studied
the cliffs and beaches of the Pays de Caux, Normandy, and in
particular those at Yport, Dieppe, Les Petites-Dalles, Etretat, and
Grainval. The present work is amongst the best of the series of
studies that Loiseau made of the cliffs at Yport in 1924.
Ruzhnikov
110 • PAINTINGS
LE QUATORZE JUILLET À PARIS
1925
oil on canvas
60 x 49 cm
1925, G Loiseau
Provenance
Galerie Jacques, Bailly, Paris (1966)
Mrs. Robert A. Magowan, San Francisco
Mr. Mark Magowan, New York (inherited from above)
Montgomery Gallery, San Francisco
Private Collection, Spain
This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné
being prepared by Didier Imbert.
Although celebrated as the lyrical painter of France’s rivers,

Loiseau was also drawn throughout his career to the bustle of
Paris, particularly to pulsating, bohemian Montmartre. Loiseau
moved to Montmartre in 1887 when the inheritance from his
grandmother enabled him to give up his job and devote his life
to painting. He settled down at La Maison du Trappeur in the
Rue Ravignan, later to be known as the Bateau-Lavoir. Loiseau
was one of the first artists to occupy this house, which would
later achieve international fame as the Bateau-Lavoir, where
Picasso lived and worked in his early career.
Le Quatorze Juillet à Paris shows a place only a few steps away

from there - the corner of the Rue Clignancourt and Boulevard
Rochechouart was one of Loiseau’s favourite Parisian subjects.
The work not only gives the precise record of the topography
of the area; the slightly chaotic succession of building façades
of different periods and styles, punctuated by chimneys and
skylights, are immediately identifiable, but the the lively and
relaxed atmosphere of the streets of Montmartre is also
portrayed. The energy of this artistic quarter is emphasised
by the people crowding around the carousel, and by the cars
and the brightly-coloured billboards. Loiseau conveys well the
atmosphere of 14 July, a national holiday in France.
Loiseau took up the subject of 14 July several times: the same
year in Rue Clignancourt, Paris, on 14th July from Thyssen-
Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, the following year, in 1926,
in a version kept at the Dieppe museum, and in another one
formerly in Alain Delon’s collection.
Ruzhnikov
Gustave Loiseau
Rue Clignancourt, Paris, on 14th July
circa 1925
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
In these paintings the artist varies his brushwork, using staccato

dabs for the moving figures, feathery hatching for distant
buildings seen through a pearly haze, and circular touches for
the scudding clouds. The bright yet subtle palette alternates
squares of primrose and ochre with blue, green and purple,
further evoking an atmosphere of Jazz Age syncopation within
Loiseau’s Post-Impressionist technique. «I only acknowledge
having one quality, that of being sincere. I work in my own
little corner, as well as I can, and do my best to convey the
impression I receive from nature[...] Only my instinct guides
me, and I am proud I do not resemble anyone,» declared
112 • PAINTINGS
the artist. Nevertheless, his views of Paris clearly recall the
streets decorated with flags painted by Monet, such as Rue
Montorgueil, Paris, Festival of June 30, 1878, as well as the series
of views of Paris painted by Pissarro from a window, like those
of the boulevard des Italiens and the boulevard Montmartre in
1897, or of the avenue de l’Opéra and of the place du Théâtre
Français the following year. In a picture like this one, Loiseau
shows an undeniable talent, but in 1925 art went through crucial
changes which followed from the Impressionist revolution of
1874. Unperturbed, Loiseau continued to depict the Parisian
landscape and its delicate light with a gentle brush, showing a
sense of space, a vivacity in his touch and a feeling for silvery
shades which reveals his unfailing loyalty towards his first
masters, Monet, Pissarro and Sisley. With a feeling of nostalgia
for the struggle of the New Painting which it had supported and
encouraged, the Durand-Ruel gallery bought this painting and
backed Loiseau’s art, as it had done fifty years before with the
Impressionist pioneers.
Claude Monet
Rue Montorgueil, Paris, Festival of June 30 , 1878
Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Ruzhnikov
114 • PAINTINGS
OCTAVE DENIS VICTOR GUILLONNET
(1872 – 1967)
BAIGNEUSES SOUS LES GLYCINES
1925
oil on canvas
61 x 74 cm
signed lower right
Provenance
The canvas is an exquisite example of Octave Denis Victor

Guillonnet’s mature style, characterised by a delicate
understanding of Post-Impressionist techniques combined with
idealised subject matter. Recalling both Homer’s Odyssey and
the gardens of Monet, the central figures in Baigneuses Sous les
Glycines resemble nymphs bathing in an Impressionist bower.
The marriage of captivating subject matter and a well developed,
modern style allowed Guillonnet to become a highly decorated
artist in his lifetime. As we can see from the painter’s emphasis
on the way light and shade affect the viewer’s appreciation of
lawn, body and blossom, Guillonnet was highly sensitive to
Impressionist colour theories regarding the surprising colour
combinations present in shadows.
Guillonnet was extraordinarily precocious as an artist, entering

the studio of Lionel Royer at the age of thirteen and, incredibly,
gaining his first medal at the Paris Salon two years later. His
glittering youth was continued when he was classed Hors-
Concours by the Salon at 21 years of age (which meant his
exhibits did not have to be judged by the committee – his six
exhibits were hung as a matter of right), and in 1901 he won the
national travel scholarship, which was only awarded every two
years and which allowed him to spend a year in Algeria. This
proved to be a decisive turning point in his career, because he
was greatly affected by the bright light and colours of Algeria,
as have many artists before him, notably Delacroix. It was also
in Algeria that Guillonnet developed his interest in the painting
of ‘half shadows’; the Impressionists had shown that shadows
contained contrasting colours and Guillonnet developed their
theories.
Works by the artist can be found in major museum collections

such as the Paris Museum of Modern Art, the Museums of
Luxembourg, Bordeaux, Dijon, Nantes and others. He also
illustrated various books, including L’Arlésienne by Alphonse
Daudet.
Ruzhnikov
116 • PAINTINGS
ALBERT LEBOURG Lebourg was made Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur in 1903
(1849 – 1928) in recognition of his contribution to painting. Between the
years 1883 and 1914, his canvases were exhibited at several
BORD DE RIVIERE institutions including: the Salon des Artistes Français; the
acclaimed Les XX exhibition, Brussels, alongside Pissarro,
late 19th – early 20th century
50 x 73 cm Morisot and Georges Seurat; and the Salon der Société
Nationale des Beaux-Arts.
signed lower left: a lebourg
Lebourg’s canvases are held in major public collections
Primarily a landscape artist, Lebourg sought to harmonise light worldwide, including the Hermitage Museum, St.Petersburg,
variations in his representation of riverbanks, snowscapes and the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, the Fondation Bemberg Museum,
sunsets. Concentrating in his work on capturing the subtle Toulouse, the Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, the Phoenix Art
nuances of light and the effects of atmosphere, Lebourg began Museum, Arizona, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National
to paint studies, depicting a single site in a variety of different Museum of Western Art, Tokyo.
lights, as Monet and Pissarro also did later.
From 1880’s until the mid-1890s, Lebourg moved around the

Île de France, Normandy and the Channel ports. He painted in
Auvergne, Normandy and Île-de-France, but his main occupation
were animated scenes of the Seine. He wrote at the time:
«I will paint often at the banks of the Seine: Nanterre, Rueil,
Chatou, Bougival, Port-Marly. These are a source of themes and
very beautiful landscapes». His river landscapes, painted in a
luminous Impressionist style, are widely regarded as amongst
his greatest artistic achievements .
French Impressionist painter of the Rouen School, Albert

Lebourg was born in 1848, in Monfort-sur-Risle, Haute-
Normandie, and initially trained as an architect. When
introduced to a local landscape painter Victor Delamarre,
however, Lebourg shifted his focus. The young, aspiring artist
was particularly inspired by the Impressionist technique of en
plein air painting, which placed the artist firmly inside their
landscape.
Lebourg continued to work as an architect in parallel with his

development as a painter. At the Academie de peinture et de
dessins in Rouen, France, Lebourg attended evening classes
run by Gustave Morin, a noted genre and history painter.
1872 marked a turning point in Lebourg’s development as a
painter. He exhibited a canvas in Rouen that so impressed a
local collector that he offered Lebourg a position as a teacher
in Algeria. Lebourg spent five years in the country, absorbing its
culture and observing the shifting intensities of North African
light. It was a transformational experience.
Lebourg returned to Paris in 1877. He studied in the École des

Beaux-Arts under the highly regarded Academic painter Jean-
Paul Laurens. His close friend August Renoir, however, exerted
upon him a more important influence. In 1878, he exhibited
alongside Renoir, Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, and Camille
Pissarro, and was featured as part of the Impressionists’ group
exhibitions the following two years.
Ruzhnikov
118 • PAINTINGS
HENRI MARTIN
(1860-1943)
MARQUAYROL, SOUS LA TREILLE, TRAVAUX DE COUTURE
ABANDONNÉS
circa 1920
oil on canvas
82.5 x 80 cm
signed lower left: ‘Henri Martin’
Provenance
Findlay Galleries, Inc., New York
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John R. McFarlin, San Antonio, Texas
Private Collection, UK
The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Cyrille
Martin
Martin was born in Toulouse in 1860. His father was a carpenter,

but the young Henri had aspirations to paint. He studied under
the noted teacher Jules Garipuy at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in
Toulouse, and in 1879 moved to Paris. A scholarship enabled
him to study with the celebrated Academic painter Jean-Paul
Laurens – also a former pupil of Garipuy – where he developed
a rigorous, academic technique applied to literary and Biblical
subjects. He gained his first medal in 1883, aged twenty-three,
at the Paris Salon. Additionally, he won the grand prize at the
Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900. Later, in 1914, he was
named a Commander of the Legion of Honour.
Martin had developed a precise and formal style over years

of academic study. All that was about to change, however,
when he travelled abroad. Granted a travel scholarship by
the Salon in 1885, Martin ventured to Italy. The trip utterly
transformed his ideas about art. His immersion in the Italian
climate, with its particular qualities of light, and his study of
Renaissance painters encouraged a looser, more experimental
style. Upon his return to Paris in 1889, Martin moved away
from the academic manner of his earlier works and embarked In a period in which art looked to the modern and abstract,
on a lengthy period of experimentation with Symbolism, Martin’s work runs against the prevailing tide, looking back to a
Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism. Under the influence form of Romantic idealism that was overtaken by other cultural
of Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, Martin adopted Pointillism, currents in the twentieth century. However, his art still has a
which is exemplified by his most successful works. universal relevance; as René Albert Fleury commented in his
1905 book on Martin, ‘He celebrates the majesty, the attitude
and the labour of life and its everlasting rests. He sings life. His
canvases and large frescos, all his works seem to evoke Georgic
gods...He was lyrical and religious and still is. There is no genius
with less than that.’ (J. Martin-Ferrieres, Henri Martin 1860-1943,
Paris, 1967, p. 105.)
Today Martin’s paintings are held internationally in major public

collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Musée d’Orsay,
Paris, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and the Musée des
Augustins, Toulouse.
Ruzhnikov
120 • PAINTINGS
HENRI MARTIN
(1860-1943)
MARQUAYROL, LE BASSIN DE LA TONNELLE SUD
circa 1920
oil on canvas
73 x 86 cm
signed lower left: Henri Martin
Provenance
Findlay Galleries, Inc., New York
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John R. McFarlin, San Antonio, Texas
Thence by descent
This work is accompanied by a photocopy of a folio comprising

an essay on the artist and a certificate of authenticity from
Findlay Galleries, Inc., signed and dated October 1965, and a
photo certificate issued by Cyrille Martin, dated 23rd January,
2014.
In 1900, Martin purchased a large, seventeenth-century

villa in the village of Labastide-du-Vert in southwest France.
Marquayrol became Martin’s summer retreat, and it was here
that he would retire from Paris between the months of May and
November, revelling in the beauty and serenity of nature that Marquayrol was as important to Martin as the gardens at
the city lacked. The peaceful surroundings of Marquayrol were Giverny were to Claude Monet. It was here that Martin’s unique
to become Martin’s preferred subject matter; as well as the style, a synthesis of Impressionism with pointillist brushwork,
landscape around the property, he depicted every single detail reached its maturity. He used divisionist techniques to convey
of the house and gardens - the round pool, the terrace, the mood and the ‘diverse effects’ of nature. Taking nature as his
vineyard, and the gate became recurring themes in his work. new ‘model of beauty’, he repeatedly painted his beloved garden
using varying colour schemes to characterise different times
of day and year until the very end of his career. Later, Martin
wrote: ‘my preoccupation with rendering atmospheric effects
increased in the country, face to face with nature. Trying to
capture its diverse effects, I was compelled to paint it differently.
The natural light, now brilliant, then diffuse, which softened
the contours of figures and landscape, powerfully obliged me
to translate it any way I could, but other than by using a loaded
brush - through pointille and the breaking up of tone’ (from a
letter to his friend Bernard Marcel, director of the Marble depot
and art critic, quoted in the exhibition catalogue Henri Martin,
Musée Henri Martin, Cahors, 1992, pp. 89-90).
Though not considered by scholars as a revolutionary painter,

Martin absorbed the radical painting styles of the Impressionists
and Post-Impressionists to develop his own pictorial language.
Short, expressive brushstrokes, harmonious compositions and
delicately nuanced palettes enabled him to capture the beauty
of his native France.
Ruzhnikov
122 • PAINTINGS
HENRI MARTIN (1860-1943)
LA TOUR DE COLLIOURE, LEVER DE LUNE
1923-1924
oil on canvas
97 х 86 cm
signed lower center: Henri Martin
Provenance
Galerie Georges Petit, Paris
Private collection (acquired from above in the 1930’s)
Sale: Sotheby’s, New York, 9 November 1994, lot 156
Private collection
Exhibitions
Exposition de Bruxelles, Brussels, Galerie du Studio, 1924
Martin
The amber light of a fading day envelops a harbour in this

exemplary Neo-Impressionist work. Glowing with warm
contrasts, La Tour de Collioure, Lever de Lune shows Henri
Martin at the height of his powers, and depicts the town in which
he produced the finest paintings of his career. The balance of
light and shade, the subtle play of the complementary colours
yellow and blue, and the rhythmic arrangement of the ships’
masts capture the artist’s sensitivity to his subject.
Having developed a successful career as a painter in Paris,

Martin began to feel stultified by the clamour of city life. In 1923,
seeking fresh inspiration, he turned his back on the capital for
the seclusion of Collioure, a port town located at the foot of
the Pyrenees near the Spanish border. Martin was in his sixties
when he moved to this Roman town. Though he was in the
latest phase of his career, the move reinvigorated his work;
he produced his best pieces here. He was able to draw upon
the company of fellow artists who gathered in the town. Andre
Derain, Henri Matisse and Paul Signac visited the town from
Henri Martin
1905 onwards; Collioure features in many key, early Fauvist Le port de Collioure
works. It was Martin, however, who captured the town at its oil on canvas, 91 x 110 cm.
most enchanting. La Tour de Collioure, Lever de Lune depicts Sold: Sotheby’s, London, 20 June 2006, price
the view from his studio overlooking the port. realized £534,400 ($986,075)
Ruzhnikov
124 • PAINTINGS
LES PEUPLIERS DU PRINTEMPS
1923-1924
oil on canvas
81 x 45 cm
signed lower right: Henri Martin
Provenance
Wally Findlay Galleries, Inc., New York
Private collection, Waco, Texas, 1985
Sale, Sotheby’s, New York,
3 October 1990, lot 47
Private collection
Exhibitions
Acquired Images, Works from Waco Collections, Waco, Texas,
The Art Center, April - May 1985
Martin
The beauty and pastoral serenity of Henri Martin’s post-

impressionist landscapes find exquisite expression in a series of
views of Labastide-du-Vert and its surroundings, where Martin
owned a villa named Marquayrol. Marquayrol was Martin’s
favourite summer retreat where he would retire from the city
between the months of May and November. It was here that
the artist felt most at ease and it is therefore not surprising the
landscape inspired many of his most noteworthy compositions.
The present view depicts a row of poplar trees that lined the
river Vert, near Labastide-du-Vert. Martin was particularly
fond of poplars as the subject of his paintings. He wrote: “it
enrages me to still be in Paris when the poplar leaves begin
to emerge in Labastide”. Similar landscapes were used by the
artist in many of his works. In the monumental murals he made
in 1903 for the Salle Henri Martin at the Capitole in Toulouse
representing summer, the same valley serves as a background.
The technique and style of this painting is typical of the artist’s
mature work, with bright colours applied in large strokes in a
neo-impressionistic fashion, used to reveal the special light of
the region around Labastide du Vert. Certainly influenced by
Pointillism, Martin also shows a strong interest in repetition
and geometric of patterns reminiscent of Claude Monet’s
poplar series of the 1890’s. Like Monet, Martin was fascinated
by the interplay of light and shade. Jacques Martin-Ferrières,
the artist’s son, writes, «Henri Martin was without contest an
Impressionist and one who had the deepest sensitiveness,
certainly equal to that of Monet, whom he most admired.
Their interpretation of nature is certainly owing to their utmost
sensitiveness and not through research of a technical process,
a poetical evocation hued by a thousand colours which can
undoubtedly be called a work of art» (Jacques Martin-Ferrières,
Henri Martin, Paris, 1967, p. 35).
Ruzhnikov
126 • PAINTINGS
LA VALLÉE DU VERT À LABASTIDE-DU-VERT
circa 1920
oil on canvas
112 x 117.5 cm
signed lower left: Henri Martin
Provenance
Ansas de Pradines, Toulouse
William Findlay Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
New York University Law School, New York
Sotheby’s, New York, February 11, 1987,
lot 64
Hammerbeck Works of Art, London, acquired from the above;
Richard Green, London
Private collection, acquired circa 1993
Arthur Pergament, New York
Private collection
new ‘model of beauty’, he repeatedly painted his beloved garden
The present work represents a subject Martin returned to on using varying colour schemes to characterise different times
a number of occasions: the view from his house of Marquayrol of day and year until the very end of his career. Later, Martin
that overlooked the valley of Labastide-du-Vert, near Cahors, wrote: ‘my preoccupation with rendering atmospheric effects
southwest France. The harmonious interaction of manmade increased in the country, face to face with nature. Trying to
habitations and their natural environment are typical of the capture its diverse effects, I was compelled to paint it differently.
sense of peace and contentment that Martin brought to his art. The natural light, now brilliant, then diffuse, which softened
The broken brushwork dissolves the forms of the landscape, the contours of figures and landscape, powerfully obliged me
emulating the effect of a softening light; indeed, Martin to translate it any way I could, but other than by using a loaded
attributed his divisionist technique to the study of nature: ‘My brush - through pointille and the breaking up of tone’ (from a
preoccupation with rendering atmospheric effects increased letter to his friend Bernard Marcel, director of the Marble depot
later, after three months in the country, face to face with nature. and art critic, quoted in the exhibition catalogue Henri Martin,
The natural light, now brilliant, then diffuse, which softened the Musée Henri Martin, Cahors, 1992, pp. 89-90).
contours of figures and landscape, powerfully obliging me to
translate it any way I could, but other than by using a loaded
brush – through pointillé and the breaking up of tone’ (quoted
in the exhibition catalogue Henri Martin, Musée Henri Martin,
Cahors, 1992, p. 89).
In 1900, Martin purchased a large, seventeenth-century

villa in the village of Labastide-du-Vert in southwest France.
Marquayrol became Martin’s summer retreat, and it was here
that he would retire from Paris between the months of May and
November, revelling in the beauty and serenity of nature that
the city lacked. The peaceful surroundings of Marquayrol were
to become Martin’s preferred subject matter; as well as the
landscape around the property, he depicted every single detail
of the house and gardens - the round pool, the terrace, the
vineyard, and the gate became recurring themes in his work.
Marquayrol was as important to Martin as the gardens at

Giverny were to Claude Monet. It was here that Martin’s unique
style, a synthesis of Impressionism with pointillist brushwork,
reached its maturity. He used divisionist techniques to convey
mood and the ‘diverse effects’ of nature. Taking nature as his
Ruzhnikov
128 • PAINTINGS
JACQUES MARTIN-FERRIERES Jacques Martin-Ferrières here demonstrates his mastery of the
(1893-1972) Pointillist technique. Close inspection of the pictorial surface
reveals an astonishing diversity of colours, each carefully
SOLEIL COUCHANT SUR LA SEINE selected to merge into an image of beguiling softness and
early 20th century warmth. Balmy heat appears to radiate from the canvas, dots
oil on canvas and dashes of orange and green seeming to vibrate against each
50 x 61 cm. other like rays of light on flowing water. Martin-Ferrières’s works
signed lower right: Martin Ferrières are held in several major museum collections, including: the
Provenance Boca Raton Museum of Art and the Musée Malraux, Le Havre.
Private collection, Texas
Jacques Martin-Ferrières was born in 1893 in Saint-Paul, France,
This post-Impressionist canvas depicts the sun setting over Martin-Ferrières. He received his early training from his father,
a canal. The soft light of dusk is evoked by delicate dots of the great Impressionist painter Henri Martin (1860-1943).
emerald, lilac, blush-pink and amber, which appear to shimmer Martin-Ferrières later received a more formal education at
on the surface of the canvas. The foreground image displays the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, where he studied under the
five barges resting upon the water’s surface; the sun blazes Academic painter Frederic Cormon (1845-1924). Like his father
at the top of the image, casting light on the trees, towpaths before him, however, Martin-Ferrières felt restricted by the
and church. In keeping with the post-Impressionist tradition, traditionalism of the academy. He was more attracted by the
which sought to enhance the Impressionist project with new great outdoors, and spent much of his life travelling around the
techniques, the artist produces a painting alive with a sense of south of France.
movement.
Martin-Ferrières, like his father, was particularly adept at
capturing subtle alterations in light and shade. His adoption of
pointillist techniques allowed him to treat the pictorial surface
like a kind of mosaic, each brushstroke floating atop the pale
surface beneath and creating images that scintillated with
light. Though greatly influenced by his father, Martin-Ferrières’
paintings gradually developed into looser, freer style. His work
is further distinguished from his father’s by his use of thick,
impasto paint.
Martin-Ferrières’s regular submissions to the Salon des Artistes

Français, Paris, were successful. He was awarded a Mention
in 1920; a Silver Medal in 1923; a travelling grant in 1924; the
National Prize in 1925; and the Gold Medal and the Institute
Prize in 1928.
Works by Martin-Ferrieres are in major museum collections

including the Louvre and Musee d’Art Moderne in Paris, Tate
Gallery and Courtauld Institute in London, Museum of Modern
Art in New York, Art Institute of Chicago, Indianapolis Museum
of Art, Fine Arts Museums of San-Francisco, Fitzwilliam Museum
in Cambridge, Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
Ruzhnikov
130 • PAINTINGS
JACQUES MARTIN-FERRIERES
(1893-1972)
VUE D’AMSTERDAM
oil on canvas
54 x 65.5 cm.
signed lower right: Martin Ferrières
Provenance
Ruzhnikov
132 • PAINTINGS
(1893-1972)
MARCHÉ ORIENTAL
oil on wooden panel
41.5 x 50 cm
signed lower left: Martin Ferrières
Provenance
In the beginning of the 1930’s Martin-Ferrieres spent several

months traveling around Southern Europe: he visited Spain,
Greece and Yugoslavia. Travels inspired him to adopt lighter
palette and looser, freer style. The present painting belongs to
the series of Kosovo views. In 1937, the series won him the Gold
Medal at Paris Salon. In 1939 the paintings were presented at a
large retrospective exhibition in Paris.
Ruzhnikov
134 • PAINTINGS
(1893-1972)
NATURE MORTE AU VIOLON
oil on canvas
50 x 60 cm
signed lower right: Martin Ferrières
Provenance
Ruzhnikov
136 • PAINTINGS
GEORGES D’ESPAGNAT (1870 - 1950)
YOUNG NUDE
circa 1910
oil on canvas
65 x 54 cm
signed with initials upper left: gdE
Provenance
Soft brushwork and a delicate palette lend a tender intimacy

to this lyrical scene: a young woman captured in a moment of
contemplation. While careful attention has been paid to the
shape and shadow of the young woman’s torso, the composition
is underpinned by a decorative, almost abstract attention to
form. A high-quality example of d’Espagnat’s mature style, in
which the painter has fully absorbed the lessons of the Fauves
and Impressionists, Young Nude features one of his signature
subjects. D’Espagnat produced a series of female nudes during
the period: similar works are on display in the Musée d’Orsay in
Paris and the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes.
interiors there (e.g. Interior, 1925; Metz, Museum of Art and
D’Espagnat was born in Melun in 1870; he moved to Paris aged History). During the 1930s, he worked in various media. He
18. D’Espagnat studied part-time at the Académie Colarossi in illustrated Alphonse Daudet’s L’Immortel (Paris, 1930) and also
Paris under GustaveClaude E tienne Courtois (1852–1923) and produced theatre designs. In 1936, he decorated the Mairie in
Jean-André Rixens (1846–1924), but was mostly self-taught. In Vincennes; in 1938, the Palais de Justice in Toulouse and in 1939,
1891, he exhibited at the Salon des Refusés and the following the ceiling of the Salle Victor Hugo in the Palais du Luxembourg
year at the Salon des Indépendants. in Paris. Ironically, considering his earlier attitudes, from 1936
to 1940, he was a professor at the Ecole des BeauxArts in Paris.
His early works, such as Suburban Railway (c. 1895; Paris, Though disrupted by the Second World War, he continued to
Mus. d’Orsay), showed a strong debt to Impressionism. He paint until his death and with his pupil, Suzanne Humbert,
was a friend of Renoir as well as of Paul Signac, Henri Edmond illustrated Francis Jammes’s Clairières dans le ciel, 1902–1906
Cross, Louis Valtat and later Maurice Denis, Bonnard and (Paris, 1948).
Vuillard. In 1898, he visited Morocco where he painted such
works as Moroccan Horseman. After his return to France, he D’Espagnat’s paintings are in major collections internationally,
concentrated on studies from nature, paintings of women, including: Musée Eugène Delacroix, Bibliotheque Nationale and
children and flowers and decorative projects for private patrons. Palais de l’Institut, Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
In 1904, he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne, becoming its York, the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas,
vice-president in 1935. Between 1905 and 1910, he made and the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana.
several trips with Valtat to visit Renoir on the Côte d’Azur as
well as travelling to Spain, Italy, Portugal, Britain, Germany and
elsewhere. In 1906 he illustrated Remy de Gourmont’s book
Sixtine, published in Paris.
In the early 1910s, he painted a number of portraits, including

several of his musician friends, including Albert Roussel, by
which time his work was more simplified, fluid and intimate.
In 1914, he provided the decor for a production of Alfred
de Musset’s play Fantasio at the Théâtre de Batignolles in
Paris. After working in a camouflage unit during World War I, in
1920, d’Espagnat bought a country house in the Quercy region
and over the next decade painted numerous landscapes and
Ruzhnikov
138 • PAINTINGS
CHARLES CAMOIN (1879 – 1965)
LE PORT DE CASSIS
circa 1905
oil on canvas
66 x 81 cm
signed lower left: Ch Camoin
Provenance
Private collection, Europe
Sale: Tajan, Paris, 18 December 2003, lot 15
Private collection, Paris (acquired from the above sale)
Private collection, New York
(acquired from the above)
Anne-Marie Grammont-Camoin has confirmed the authenticity
of this painting
Charles Camoin was a member of the short-lived movement in

modern French painting known as Fauvism. Camoin joined the
Fauves in 1905, exhibiting with them in the Salon d’Automne.
Working alongside with Henri Matisse, André Derain, Raoul
Dufy, Henri Manguin, Maurice Vlaminck, Camoin shared their
passion for the picturesque nature of Provence and Côte d’Azur.
Like most of these painters, he spent lengthy periods on the
Mediterranean coast where he produced some of his most
accomplished works.
Charles Camoin was the son of a paint manufacturer in

Marseilles who died when Charles was six years old. His mother
travelled extensively, absenting herself for long periods at a
time, and Camoin’s studies suffered accordingly. At 16, he
enrolled at a commercial college in Marseilles, but also attended
courses at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he was awarded a
first prize for drawing and composition. In 1896, at the age of
17, Camoin moved to Paris where he was admitted to Gustave
Moreau’s class at the École des Beaux Arts, shortly before the
latter’s death. He soon left on his travels in the company of
Albert Marquet. During his short time in Moreau’s class, Camoin
made a number of lasting friendships, notably with artists who
would go on to pioneer Fauvism: Henry Manguin, Georges
Rouault and, in particular, Jean Puy and Henri Matisse, with
whom he exchanged letters on a regular basis.
In 1900, Camoin did his military service, first in Arles, where

he painted compositions inspired by Vincent Van Gogh motifs,
then in 1902 in Aix, where he frequently met with Paul Cézanne,
with whom Camoin maintained a life-long correspondence
and whose advice and counsel he cited repeatedly. In 1903,
Camoin exhibited for the first time – at the Salon des Artistes
Indèpendants in Paris. The following year, he met Claude
Monet; he then held his first solo exhibition at the Berthe Weil
Gallery in Paris. The following decade saw Camoin travelling
extensively in the company of Marquet, visiting London,
Ruzhnikov
Charles Camoin
Le Port de Cassis, c. 1905
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
Frankfurt, Naples, Capri, Corsica and Morocco (where he was work from what might be considered his genuinely Fauve period
accompanied by Matisse). In 1912, Camoin exhibited at the is targeted very much towards the critical audience identified at
Galerie Kahnweiler in Paris and, in 1913, examples of his work the 1912 Kahnweiler Gallery exhibition and at the 1913 New York
were featured at the now legendary Armory Show in New York Armory Show. For some reason or other, his personal success at
City. In 1918, Camoin and Matisse travelled to Cagnes to visit both exhibitions provoked a kind of depression in Camoin and he
Renoir, the meeting was to prove decisive because it signalled promptly destroyed more than 80 of his canvases. There has been
the end of Cezanne’s influence on Camoin’s work. In 1920, at considerable speculation as to the reasons which lay behind this
the age of 41, Camoin married Charlotte Prost; their daughter depression, but it is difficult to explain it away on purely artistic
Anne-Marie was born in 1933. grounds; that it was provoked by his association with the Fauves
seems unlikely, given that he never fully espoused the Fauvist
Camoin worked latterly out of two studios, the one in style or colours. In the event, some of the paintings he opted to
Montmartre that he had occupied since 1944, and the other destroy were subsequently ‘retrieved’ by collectors, a fact which
in St. Tropez. He was made an officer of the Legion d’Honneur triggered a successful lawsuit in 1927 against Francis Carco and
that same year and in 1959, he was elected Commander of the resulted in a benchmark decision to the effect that a painting
Order des Arts et Lettres. Camoin’s early work was influenced which has been destroyed and thrown away may be recovered
in its existing form but may not be subsequently ‘restored’ to its
by the Provence tradition: striking colours applied liberally in
original form. In other words, the artist is and remains the sole
bold brush strokes, to the point where some of his works were
arbiter. After visiting Renoir in 1918, Camoin became increasingly
wrongly attributed to Paul Gauguin. After his travels from 1905
obsessed with light and the interplay of light and colours. As a
to 1915 in the company of Matisse and Marquet, a change of
result, he painted both in the studio and outdoors, directly from
technique became apparent as Camoin began to focus more
nature. His notebooks and journals document the difficulty he
on light than on colour. In this respect, he and Marquet were
experienced in achieving a balance between the two.
as one, as their work dating from this period shows. Overall, his
140 • PAINTINGS
Camoin’s productive life extended over 50 years up to 1964,
although his output in the early years was minimal and consisted
of mainly pastels and watercolours. His total output is around
3,000 paintings, of which one third were destroyed during his bout
of depression and nearly 700 of the remainder are in major public
and private collections.
Works by Camoin are held by major museum collections, such

as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, New
York City, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, Musée d’Art
Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Courtauld
Institute of Art in London, and others.
Ruzhnikov
142 • PAINTINGS
CHARLES CAMOIN (1879 – 1965)
NUDE
circa 1905
oil on canvas
81 x 100 cm
signed lower right: Ch Camoin
Provenance
Private collection, New York (acquired from the above in
1998)
During mid-1900’s and 1910’s Charles Camoin, member of the

short-lived Fauvist movement, painted a series of canvases
representing the world of brothels which he explored alongside
his friend Albert Marquet. Painted in rich, vibrant colours, the
present works is an outstanding example of this series, alluding
to both Manet’s Olympia and Toulouse-Lautrec’s scenes of the
Parisian demi-monde.
The style of Camoin’s early work was influenced by the

Provence tradition: striking colours applied liberally in bold
brush strokes, to the point where some of his works were
wrongly attributed to Paul Gauguin. After 1905 and his travels
with Matisse and Marquet, Camoin began to focus more on
light than on colour. Camoin’s bright, luminous palette was also
influenced by Renoir whom he met in 1918.
Albert Marquet
The Two Friends, 1912
Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie de
Besançon
Ruzhnikov
144 • PAINTINGS
EDWARD ATKINSON HORNEL
(1864-1933)
JAPANESE GARDEN
1922
oil on canvas
102 x 76 cm

E. A. Hornel, 1922
Provenance
Japanese art and culture were steadily drawn to the British

public’s attention through a series of exhibitions in the latter
half of the nineteenth century. The result was a flourishing
Japonisme – a taste for things Japanese – and it was under this
prevailing mood that Hornel and his friend George Henry set
forth to Japan in 1893, “to see and study the environment out
of which this great art sprung, to become personally in touch
with the people, to live their life, and discover the source of their
inspiration” (E. A. Hornel quoted in B. Smith, Hornel, Edinburgh
1997, p. 89). The thirteen month trip had a great impact upon
Hornel’s artistic career. On his return to Scotland, he exhibited
his Japanese paintings at Alex Reid’s gallery in Glasgow to
high critical acclaim, with audiences captivated by his dazzling
portrayal of Japanese life. Hornel’s experience of Japan provided
him with an ongoing source of inspiration.
To him the Japanese aesthetic was “the greatest impressionism

the world has so far possessed – all useless details are laid
aside”, “whereas we have been working too much on the
surface, and in striving to realise Truth have forgotten the
spirit” (Hornel’s 1895 lecture, “Japan”, Corporation Art Galleries,
Glasgow, 9 February 1895 (transcript from Broughton House).
Edward Atkinson Hornel

The Balcony, Yokohama, 1894
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Ruzhnikov
146 • PAINTINGS
EDWARD ATKINSON HORNEL
(1864-1933)
GEISHA GIRLS
1922
oil on canvas
76.5 x 64.5 cm

E.A. Hornel, 1922
He revisited the subject throughout his career, forever

enchanted by the tea ceremonies, the beautiful dancing, the
elegance of the young women and their vibrant costumes. The
decorative splashes of colour he employs display the influence
of Japanese art, but the formal approach to composition is
largely his own. He uses more intense, mosaic-like brushwork
and colour, which highlights the influence of late Pre-
Raphaelitism, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and more specifically of
the French painter Adolphe Monticelli (1824-1886). The Japanese
Garden reveals Hornel’s enthusiasm for Japanese culture, while
the energetic surface, the dynamic postures and expressive
faces of the geishas reflect Hornel’s driving interest in rendering
life and movement in his art.
Edward Atkinson Hornel was born in 1864 in Australia, but was

brought up and lived in Scotland. In 1880, he started his formal
studies in art at the Trustees Academy in Edinburgh. Three years
later he enrolled to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in
Antwerp, an experience which immersed him in the avant-garde
ideas engaging the continent during the period.
Hornel exhibited for the first time in 1883 at the Edinburgh

Exhibition. Later, he became a member of the International
Society of Painters and Engravers and an associate member Over the years, Hornel closely collaborated with the painter
of the New Gallery. In 1901, Hornel was elected to the Royal George Henry. The two worked side by side for about ten years
Scottish Academy but declined the honour. having produced a series of pictures that are regarded as the
essence of the Glasgow School. Through this friendship, Hornel
Hornel was one of the leading figures of the Glasgow School, moved to a more colourful, decorative and increasingly symbolic
an informal alliance of some twenty artists that came together style. In 1893–94, the two artists spent a year and a half in Japan.
in the early 1880s known to introduce forms of Impressionism Hornel became fascinated with the beauty of Japanese culture.
to Scotland. Inspired by contemporary French painting and Influenced by Oriental art, Hornel developed a decorative
Japanese prints, the Glasgow Boys produced their most notable approach, sometimes bordering on the abstract and inspired in
works between the 1890’s and 1910. They used realism and part by Whistler’s progressive art.
naturalism to move away from Victorian sentimentality in
painting. They are now recognised as having revolutionised
Scottish painting and paved the way for a new ‘modern’ style of
painting that swept Europe and America.
Ruzhnikov
148 • PAINTINGS
TAMARA DE LEMPICKA (1898 – 1980)
À L’OPÉRA
1941
oil on canvas
76.2 x 50.8 cm
T. de Lempicka, 1941
Provenance
Barry Friedman Ltd., New York, 1979
Wolfgang Joop, 1980
Exhibitions
Tamara de Lempicka (Baroness de Kuffner), Julien Levy Galleries,
New York, no. 18; San Francisco, Los Angeles, no. 7, 1941
Tamara de Lempicka (Baroness Kuffner), Milwaukee Art Center,
1942, no. 12
Tamara de Lempicka, Tokyo & Osaka, Seibu Gallery, 1981
Tamara de Lempicka, Tra eleganza e trasgressione, Rome,
Accademia di Francia (Villa Medici),
1994, no. 53, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Tamara de Lempicka, Art Deco Icon, London, The Royal Academy
& Vienna, Kunstforum Wien, 2004-2005, no. 55, illustrated in
colour in the catalogue
Tamara de Lempicka, Vigo, Fundación Caixa Galicia, 2006
Tamara de Lempicka, Milan, Palazzo Reale, 2006-2007, no. 51,
illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Literature
G. Mandel, La pittrice Tamara de Lempicka, Milan, 1957,
illustrated p. 12
G. Marmori, Tamara de Lempicka, Milan, 1978, p. 7
G. Bazin, H. Itsuki, Tamara de Lempicka, Tokyo, 1980, no. 89,
illustrated in colour
W. Joop, Tamara de Lempicka, Träume von Mythen und Moden
// Pan, Offenburg, May 1987, p. 17
K. de Lempicka-Foxhall, Ch. Phillips, Passion by Design: The Art
and Times of Tamara de Lempicka, New York, 1987,
illustrated p. 140
A. Blondel, Tamara de Lempicka, Catalogue Raisonné, 1921-
1979, Lausanne, 1999, no. B.222, illustrated in colour p. 309
Ruzhnikov
In March 1939, Tamara de Lempicka arrived in New York, along

with her latest paintings. Among these pieces was yet unfinished
At the Opera, which she had started before leaving Europe.
The painting is preceded by a study in pencil dated 1937, with
significant differences compared with the final portrait. The
painting was first presented in 1941 at the Julian Levy Galleries
in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The exhibition
announcement in the Los Angeles Examiner on 24 March
1941 contained a photo of Lempicka in her studio in Beverly
Hills in front of this canvas. The painting’s more overtly visual
elements, which in certain elements resemble the neo-Baroque,
nevertheless render it a wonderful example of the Art Deco
movement, of which Lempicka was the most prominent and
influential woman.
The painting comes from the collection of German fashion

designer Wolfgang Joop, one of the most passionate collectors
of Lempicka’s work. The picture was particularly admired by
Andy Warhol, who was the under-bidder at the sale in which
Joop acquired the painting. ‘I whisked away the first picture,
Dans l’Opera, from under Andy Warhol’s nose,’ later commented
Joop. Among other works by Lempicka in Joop’s collection
were portraits of the Duchesse de la Salle, Marjorie Ferry,
Mademoiselle Poum Rachou, and Arlette Boucard aux Arums -
the finest group of paintings ever to appear on market.
Lempicka claimed to have been born in Poland in 1902, though

scholars now believe she was in fact born in Moscow, in 1895.
Her wealthy family emigrated to Paris just prior to World War
I, and it was here, surrounded by avant-gardists, that she
developed her unique style. Lempicka’s earliest influence was
academic. She trained at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière
under French painter Maurice Denis, who taught her the
principles of Les Nabis: a group of Post-Impressionist artists
who stressed the importance of graphic art and design within
painting.
Characterised by bold compositions, theatrical lighting,

decorative emphasis on pattern, and sensual modelling,
Lempicka’s paintings are instantly recognisable. Best known
for her striking portraits of glamorous women, Lempicka’s
work captured the spirit of the Hollywood age, yet infused her
paintings with Baroque and Renaissance techniques, a synthesis
of tradition and contemporary attitudes
Tamara de Lempicka
Portrait of the Duchess de la Salle, 1925
Private collection
150 • PAINTINGS
Ruzhnikov
152 • PAINTINGS
ÉDOUARD VUILLARD (1868-1940)
LA SALLE À MANGER AU CHÂTEAU DES CLAYES
1935-1938
distemper and charcoal on paper laid down
on canvas
173.5 x 134.5 cm
stamped with signature, lower right:
E Vuillard
Provenance
Estate of the artist
Sam Salz Inc., New York
Eva Susan Stern, London
Robert B. Mayer, Chicago (acquired from the above, 1955)
Sale: Christie’s, New York, 15 November 1989, lot 462
Private collection
Sale: Christie’s, New York, 8 November 2000, lot 39 (price
realized $688,000.)
Exhibitions
Vuillard, Paris, Galerie Charpentier, 1945
Vuillard, Brussels, Palais de Beaux-Arts, October 1946, no. 6
(illustrated; titled ‘Déjeuner aux Clayes’) Château des Clayes, a fourteenth century manor house not
Vuillard, Stockholm, Galerie d’Art Latin, 1948, no. 20 far from the Palace of Versailles, was to be Vuillard’s last
Edouard Vuillard, Charles Hug, Basel, Kunsthalle, March-May country refuge and his major source of inspiration in the
1949, no. 237 (illustrated; titled ‘Salle à manager aux Clayes’) last twelve years of his life. Les Clayes was owned by Joseph
Edouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses, 1890-1940, New
(Jos) Hessel and his wife Lucie, Vuillard’s lifelong friends and
York, The Jewish Museum, 4 May - 23 September, 2012
closest companions. Jos Hessel was a partner in the prominent
Literature Parisian art-dealing firm Bernheim-Jeune, and together with
C. Roger-Marx, Vuillard et son temps, Paris, 1946, p. 168 the Bernheim brothers was instrumental in introducing Vuillard
illustrated to avant-garde circles. Lucie Hessel - who became Vuillard’s
C. Roger-Marx, Edouard Vuillard 1867-1940 // Gazette des lover, confidante, muse and mentor - was one of Vuillard’s most
Beaux-Arts 29, № 952 (June 1946), p. 376, illustrated frequent subjects until his death in 1940.
C. Roger-Marx, Vuillard, Paris, 1948, no. 63, illustrated, p. 71
R. Gaffé, Introduction à la peinture française. De Manet à
Picasso, Paris, 1954, p. 171, illustrated
A. Salomon, G. Cogeval, Vuillard. Critical Catalogue of Paintings
and Pastels, Paris, 2003, vol. III, p. 1563, № XII-212, illustrated in
colour (titled ‘Lunch at Les Clayes’)
S. Brown (ed.), Edouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses
(exhibition catalogue), New York, 2012, p. 65 (illustrated)
Ruzhnikov
Édouard Vuillard
Jos and Lucie Hessel in the Small Salon,
Rue de Rivoli, 1900-1905
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
154 • PAINTINGS
The artist was often guest at the fashionable social events and but spent his youth in Paris where his family moved in 1877.
friendly gatherings held at Les Clayes. He quietly observed the Vuillard did not seriously apply himself to painting and drawing
guests, filling his notebooks with sketches. Jacques Salomon, until the age of 19 when influenced by friendships made at
his nephew-in-law, recalled of Vuillard at Les Clayes that “he school with Ker-Xavier Roussel and Maurice Denis, both later
was constantly drawing his friends, and those who found his recognized as artists in their own right. In 1887, Vuillard began
eye upon them knew they must hold the pose in which he had attending art classes at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and from
caught them…” (J. Russel, Vuillard, Greenwich, CT., 1971, p. 128.) 1888 at the Académie Julian, where he met Paul Serusier and
Then these sketches were transferred “to a sheet of cardboard Pierre Bonnard, thus forming the nucleus of the group which
or canvas, or more frequently to a piece of paper which he cut was to call themselves the «Nabis». Inspired by Japanese colour
from a roll that stood permanently in one corner of his studio.” woodcuts and the painting of Paul Gauguin, the Nabis rejected
(ibid., p. 127). the naturalism of academic art and experimented with a new
concept of image space, attaining a decorative flatness and
In the present picture, Vuillard masterfully displays elegantly pattern-like order of what is depicted. Their principal belief
dressed bourgeoisie involved in casual conversation within was that above all, art is decoration and that art should strive
a formal dining room setting. This contrast of highly refined for evocative and expressive declaration. Vuillard’s embrace of
individuals shown in intimate and relaxed poses is typical of his this philosophy is evident in the many large decorative panels
later works. “In an unsystematic way he assembled as complete painted over his career with expansive areas of flat, matte
a record as any we have of the way well-to-do people looked colour, cropped compositions, altered perspective and unusual
and behaved in the France of the Third Republic.” (J. Russel, colour relationships. But Vuillard’s work and particularly his
Vuillard, Greenwich, CT., 1971, p. 69.) Madame Hessel is pictured subject matter also reflect an impressionistic attitude, that there
at the far right of the table, conversing with the playwright should be no division between the artist’s studio and the life that
Romain Coolus. Lulu Hessel, her adopted daughter, is seated in exists around it. Vuillard is also often referred to as an «Intimist»
the middle. for the frequency with which he depicted family interiors and
local scenes. After the breakup of the Nabis in 1900, Vuillard
La Salle à Manger au Château des Clayes was painted on ochre- established himself with a fashionable social circle. His subject
coloured paper using the distemper medium. “Vuillard first matter reflected this change as he began painting portraits of
used détremper as a scene painter in the theater and liked its prospective clients in elegant surroundings.
quick-drying properties as well as its chalky, unreflective surface,
which harmonized well in an interior setting…In cultivating a dry, Vuillard’s paintings are held in major national collections,
matte quality, Vuillard was in tune with most of the decorative including the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, MOMA,
painters of his generation, who, in the wake of Puvis and New York, the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and the National Gallery,
Gauguin, sought to avoid the illusion of depth and reflective London.
properties associated with oil paint and to appropriate, in
different ways, the flat wall-enhancing effects of fresco.” (B.
Thomson, Vuillard, New York, 1988, p. 44). Subtle use of colour
recalls Vuillard’s artistic beginnings as a Nabi.
Édouard Vuillard was born in Cuiseaux (Saône-et-Loire) in 1868
Credits
Photography: Andy Johnson, London, UK

Design: Mariya Kiseleva, Moscow, Russia
Printed: Alenprint, Budapest, Hungary
Chief consultant: Krysenok Diplodok
Andre Ruzhnikov
+44-7866-638-973
+1-917-244-3777
+7-905-715-5530
ruzhnikov.com
e-mail: [email protected]
[email protected]

Ruzhnikov Paintings

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ruzhnikov Paintings

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ruzhnikov Paintings

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ruzhnikov

Fine art & antiques

Goat and a Sheep in an Italianate Landscape is a perfect

Roos’ paintings from this period are characterised by the

The rare surviving works by Antoine Caron, one of the most

Antoine Caron can be named among the few significant French

Bravery of the Persian Women is an early example of Frans

This cabinet-sized painting is exemplary of Francken’s technical

The painting is a replica of the same composition by the French

Jean-Frederic Schall (1752-1825) was one of the last important

The exemplum – a story or anecdote designed to encourage

This painting, by one of Caravaggio’s followers, depicts the

The scene was depicted by many artists, notably Peter Paul

The paintings of the still anonymous Master of the Fertility of

In all the three paintings, the protagonist is a black pig in a

The translated inscription of the first painting reads: “The

In the second painting we find the black pig in a hammock that

The Master could be seen as the inventor of a “moral zoology”,

The painting depicts the curious legend of the baker of Eeklo,

There are about ten extant versions depicting this interesting

The present painting relates closest to the panel in the

Cornelis van Dalem (1530-1573) - Flemish Mannerist painter,

After Cornelis van Dalem and Jan van Wechelen

‘It is a wonderful thing to publish an album of

L. Tolstoy, Russian Peasants, 1908

View of the Russian Section of the Fine Arts

signed in Cyrillic and dated lower left: Alexander Makovsky, 1901

The present painting reveals the influence of the renowned

Born to a famous artistic dynasty, Alexander Makovsky was also

Alexander Makovsky’s works are found in the collections of

Sold at Sotheby’s London 26 Nov 2007,

signed in Cyrillic and dated lower right: Rumyantsev, 1898

The painting by Andrei Antipovich Rumyantsev is a characteristic

Rumyantsev was a later follower of the Russian realist school

Nikolai Rachkov is best known for his portraits of young women

Born near Nizhny Novgorod in 1825, from 1838 Rachkov

Rachkov was one of the most significant Russian genre painters,

In the 1880’s, Konstantin Makovsky became interested in the

These ambitious works were built up from smaller portrait

A Boyar Wedding Feast, 1883

Soldiers Resting by the Well is a fine example of late nineteenth-

Nikolai Dmitrievich Dmitriev-Orenburgsky was born in Nizhny

In 1863 Dmitriev-Orenburgsky resigned, receiving the title

Dmitriev-Orenburgsky settled permanently in Paris in the early

Works by Dmitriev-Orenburgsky are in the collections of the

Kulikov painted his wife quite a few times in various roles:

Works by Ivan Kulikov are in many museum collections,

Vsevolod Pushin, Colonel of Life-Guard His Imperial Majesty’s

The portraits are contained within original oval gilt plaster

Completed in 1848, the painting depicts Grand Duke Mikhail

Tsar Nicholas I was a great collector of military paintings, and

The German painter Carl Friedrich Schulz was educated at

His exquisite grasp of anatomy and form, as well as his own

Fedor Karlovich Burkhardt was an acclaimed master of the

Spring Landscape demonstrates the artist’s mastery of the

Only a small number of Burkhardt’s works survived. The details

Nikolai Samokish was a highly respected military painter. His skills

Samokish’s style was honed from direct experience. In 1887 he