Zinaida Evgenievna Serebriakova, 1884-1967

Sotheby's London, Twentieth Century European Paintings, Drawings, Watercolours and Sculpture and Russian Paintings, 3 March 1982, Lot 336

Original canvas. There is layer of light surface dirt and a two small flakes of paint loss to the lower left. UV light reveals no signes of retouching. Held in a simple wood frame and unexamined out of frame.
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Zinaida Serebriakova was born a member of the Russian art world as a descendent of two of its leading constituents—the Benois and Lanceray families. She studied painting at the Princess Tenisheva Art School in St. Petersburg before travelling to Italy, where she was exposed to numerous Renaissance masterpieces. Her mature oeuvre was inspired by the Renaissance paintings she saw, as well as by her own family heritage and the knowledge it instilled in her.

 

The present work was executed in Paris in 1933, almost a decade after the artist was circumstantially forced to emigrate, dividing her from home and family, and permanently establishing the family sphere as a crucial and nostalgic theme in her late career. Her youngest children, Alexandre and Katya, were able to join her by 1928, but she was forever haunted by the absence of her two eldest children.

 

Serebriakova painted many female portraits throughout her lifetime, and Katya was one of her favorite subjects. In Portrait of Katya, the Artist's Daughter, Serebriakova blends both Classical and Realist motifs, monumentalizing her daughter's profile through exaggerated chiaroscuro, a subtle distortion of size and a dramatically vibrant palette