Alexander Evgenievich Yakovlev, 1887-1938

Sandra Yakovlev, the artist's sister
Acquired from the above by the present owners

Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, Twenty-sixth Annual International Exhibition of Paintings, 13 October - 4 December 1927, No.257

Ex.Cat. Twenty-sixth Annual International Exhibition of Paintings, Carnegie Institute Pittsburgh, 1927, listed under No.257 Still Life
P.H.Falk (Ed.), Record of the Carnegie Institute's International Exhibtiions 1896-1996, Sound View Press, 1998, p.167 listed under paintings exhibited in 1927

The canvas has been lined. The picture is clean and ready to hang. There are areas of retouching to the background and the edge and leg of the table. Held in a simple black painted wooden frame and behind perspex. Unexamined out of frame. A professional restoration report in Dutch from the Rijsmuseum, Amsterdam is available on request.
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Still life with Table is a rediscovered masterpiece which remained for many years in the artist's family. Previously owned by his sister, Sandra, from whom it was acquired by the present owners along with a group of unpublished works in tempera, oil and sketches on paper which are presented in the Russian Day sale catalogue, lots 178-187

 

Sandra Yakovlev arrived in Paris along with her mother in 1922, shortly after Alexander had settled there. Already a widow following the death of her husband, an Imperial army officer, during the Revolution, she was to lose her only daughter to scarlet fever in Constantinople on the journey to Europe.

Yakovlev was a source of constant support for his family during their early years in exile and, with the proceeds from the exhibition of the 1924 Citroën expedition to Central Africa, he bought their first apartment in the 16^th arrondissement.

 

A talented opera singer, Sandra re-launched her career in 1925 as Aida at the Opéra de Paris and to great international success. After many years of touring the world with productions including Eugene Onegin, Prince Igor and Tosca, she retired from professional singing to teach at the Rachmaninov conservatoire in Paris.

 

Still life with Table is believed to date from the artist's earliest trips to Italy. Yakovlev first visited Italy in 1913 on a travel scholarship with his close friend and fellow Academy of Arts Student, Vasily Shukhaev. He travelled to Capri again in the early 1920s and returned there many times during his life.

 

The offered work can be linked to a series of still lifes depicting traditional Italian objects, such as Still Life with Musical Instruments, dated Capri 1923 (fig.1). Compositionally and technically, there are also many analogies with the undated Still Life with Provolone (fig.2). In both paintings, the arrangement of objects is 'framed' by architectural devices: in the case of Still life with Provolone, it is the green window-frame; likewise, the space around Still life with table is defined by the open door. The light enters the compositions from the left at an angle, casting strong, elongated shadows and defining the objects' three-dimensionality. We should also note the recurring motif of the glass tumbler depicted at an incline so as to create an unnerving dynamic.