A silver sculpture of Peter the Great, Sokolov, after the design by Alexander Opekushin, St Petersburg, 1872

Christie's London, 18 July 1996, lot 87

The present lot is based on a monumental sculpture by Alexander Mikhailovich Opekushin (1838-1923). Opekushin is one of the sculptors who emerged during the mid-19th century when there was a revival in monumental, patriotic sculpture. Opekushin's teacher and employer, Academician Mikhail Mikeshin, won a competition for his design for a monument to the Millennium of Russia to be unveiled in Novgorod in 1862, and enlisted Opekushin as one of the young sculptors to assist with its execution. The successful reception of the monument served Mikeshin's workshop well, and with its growth came Opekushin's own development as a sculptor, as he began to contribute to more significant commissions.

His first independent work was the statue of Peter the Great on which the present lot is based. The sculpture pays tribute to another significant work, Nikolai Ge's Peter the Great Interrogating the Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich at Peterhof, which showed the Emperor forced to put the wellbeing of the State ahead of his own familial ties, as he condemns his son to death. Ge had created two nearly identical versions of the painting: one for Emperor Alexander II, now in the State Russian Museum; and the other for Pavel Tretyakov, which is now held in the State Tretyakov Gallery. In both Ge's painting and Opekushin's sculpture, a map of a city-to-be lies at the Emperor's feet, though this is absent in Sokolov's rendition. The sculpture was also proclaimed a feat for the artist, and contributed to Opekushin's appointment as an Academician of Sculpture.