Lot n° 33
Estimation :
50000 - 80000
EUR
POKHITONOV Ivan (1850-1923) - Lot 33
POKHITONOV Ivan (1850-1923)
Leo Tolstoy meditating in the forest, 1905
Oil on panel
Signed "I. Pokhitonow" lower right. Annotated on the back on a label in the artist's hand: "N° 186 / Tolstoï méditant à l'endroi [sic] ou selon la légende la petite baguette verte a été enfouie et ou plus tard il fut enterré". Inscription on passe-partout "Tolstoy meditating at the place where/ according to legend the little green wand was buried and where later he was buried in his estate at Jasnaia Poliana".
8.9 х 11.5 cm
Provenance: private collection, Belgium
Collection Isidor Collin , Liège, Belgium
Exhibitions :
The artist Ivan Pavlovitch Pokhitonov, Moscow, Lemercier Gallery, 00/04-00/05/1911, no. 131, [L. N. Tolstoï se promenant]
Catalog of the retrospective of Russian painting, XVIII-XXth centuries, Slavonic Institute Prague, Prague 1935, no. 72, [Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana, 1905] (probably)
In the summer of 1905, Ivan Pokhitonov, already well known abroad and recently awarded a medal by the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts, spent three weeks at Leo Tolstoy's home in Yasnaya Polyana. Having lived in Europe for several decades, Pokhitonov had never lost touch with Russian intellectuals and artists, and was good friends with Ivan Turgenev, often visiting him in Bougival, near Paris. Leo Tolstoy's invitation was all the more interesting for the artist. In those days, the Tolstoys entertained the crème de la crème of Russian art and literature. Every summer, several artists would sometimes stay simultaneously at the writer's home, trying to capture the genius's every gesture. Pokhitonov, too, was anxious about this visit. In letters to his wife, the artist wrote of his first meeting with the writer: "Lev Nikolaevich rose with a lively, energetic movement to meet me. I've known you for a long time," he began, after the customary greetings. Turgenev has told me a lot about you. Are you a hunter? In less than a minute, my initial nervousness had completely dissipated. I had the impression that my interlocutor was not Lev Nikolaevich, nor Tolstoy, the genius, but an ordinary, banal old acquaintance." As it turned out, Tolstoy had heard of this extraordinary artist many times before, of his miniatures created using a unique technique, and of how he had conquered the whole of Paris. In his memoirs, Pokhitonov admired Tolstoy's simplicity and marveled at the friendship that had quickly developed between them: "It's not just simplicity, it's a kind of clarity, almost transparency! You immediately see the man as he really is." Work at Yasnaya Polyana was going swimmingly, but the days were very busy. Starting at 7 a.m. every day, the artist would work on several projects that Tolstoy liked very much, and then, after long dinners and meetings where sometimes 20 people would gather around the same table, he would collapse into bed from exhaustion. In three weeks, the artist managed to create a series of works reflecting Leo Tolstoy's daily life and personality, as well as several views of the Yasnaya Polyana estate. Some of these are now held in museum collections (Tolstoy on the Terrace, 1905, and Lev Tolstoy in the Forest, near where the Green Stick is Buried, 1905, Museum of Russian Art, St. Petersburg). Some of the works in this series were given as gifts to relatives and can still be found today in family and private collections ("Entrance to Yasnaya Polyana. Tolstoy on horseback", presented by the artist to his wife Eugenie Wulfert on Christmas Eve 1906).
Bibliography :
Paston E., Pokhitonov chez Léon Tolstoï, la revue de la Galerie Tretiakov, special issue "I.P. Pokhitonov, artiste enchanteur", October 2019.
Petrov V., Ivan Pokhitonow, Moscow, Biely Gorod, 2003, p. 40
Tolstoy and the Artist, Tolstoy and Art, His Letters, His Memoirs, Iskustvo, 1978, p. 157
We would like to thank the expert in Ivan Pokhitonov's work, Mr. Olivier Bertrand, for his assistance in appraising this work.
ПОХИТОНОВ Иван (1850-1923)
Лев Толстой размышляющий в лесу, 1905
Дерево, масло
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