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THE PROPERTY OF A DISTINGUISHED COLLECTOR Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky is considered with some justification to be the successor of Vasilii Polenov, Vladimir Makovsky and Ilya Repin with the last of these influencing his work directly as tutor at the St Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts from 1894 to 1895. Dating from 1912, this work represents the apogee of the Russian Impressionist style. With its silver birch trees and the peasant girl looking longingly across the brook, it is a timeless image of the Russian countryside which speaks as strongly to us today as when it was painted almost a century ago. A similar composition from circa 1915 was offered at Christie's New York as lot 55 on 18 April 2007 (fig. 1). In both pictures, Bogdanov-Belsky uses the patterning of the silver birches to create a dappled, linear effect with a burst of red in the clothing drawing the viewer's eye in towards the figures. Born in Shitiki, Smolenskaya Province in 1866, Bogdanov-Belsky studied first at Moscow College of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture from 1884 to 1889 before moving to St Petersburg in 1894 to study under Repin. From 1890 to 1918, he exhibited with the Wanderers. Despite having already attained significant technical proficiency by this time, Bogdanov-Belsky decided to continue his artistic education by travelling to Paris to study at the private Colarossi Academy in Paris which Gauguin and Modigliani had also attended. This decision greatly developed his awareness of international trends in art, particularly Impressionism, and strongly affected Bogdanov-Belsky's art. This experience accounts for his unique contribution to Russian art as the bridge between the academic style of his tutors and the progressive artistic trends in Western European art of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many will be familiar with his later work, painted after his emigration to Latvia in 1921, examples of which appear on the market with relative frequency. However, opportunities to purchase earlier works from earlier periods, such as this, are few and far between. This is an especially fine example of his oeuvre and highlights his ability to capture both the outward likeness and inner spirit of his subjects so effectively. His exceptional aptitude in this respect was particularly prized in his lifetime and led to Imperial commissions to paint portraits from life of both Nicholas I and Nicholas II. For information on Semen Belits please see lot 37.

Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky (1866-1945)

Peasant woman by a brook

Details

Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky (1866-1945)
Peasant woman by a brook
signed in Cyrillic and dated 'Bogdanov-Bel'skii/1912' (lower right)
oil on canvas
39½ x 26½ in. (100.3 x 67.3 cm.)

Provenance

Semen Belits (1898-1980), Paris.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1978.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 17.5% on the buyer's premium.

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