Nikolai Nikanorovich Dubovskoy

State Russian Museum Archives (collection 222, file 23, page 4), Deed of the Distribution of Artistic Works Belonging to the Deceased Professor of the Academy of Fine Art, Nikolai Nikanorovich Dubovskoy, July 19, 1938

This painting is unlined. The paint layer is stable almost throughout, with the exception of one area in the upper center sky where the paint is flaking in the brightest area of cloud. This is most likely connected to what appear to be some old retouches and possibly pentiments of the placement of the moon itself. The canvas does not need to be lined, but it can be cleaned and retouches will be required in this area of the upper center sky. However, the rest of the paint layer is undamaged and well preserved. The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

When Dubovskoy was ten years old, his father, a Don Cossack, sent him to Vladimirskaia Military School in Kiev. However, the young Dubovskoy's interest in art would prompt him to awaken two hours earlier than his classmates in order to practice drawing. (This quality was present in his adult years, when he became known as an artist dedicated to his work sometimes to the extreme. For example, he did not show up on time for his own wedding because he was unable to stop working on a landscape he had started that morning.)

His drawing teacher at the military school encouraged him in his artistic pursuits, and Dubovskoy soon left the school to study under the famous landscape painter Mikhail Klodt (1832–1902) at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts between 1877 and 1881, where he was awarded four silver medals. However, in 1881 he quit the Academy, refusing to take part in the final competition for the gold medal due to his objection to the Academy's attempt to impose a particular subject for the competition.

The following year, Dubovskoy became close to the circle of the Itinerants, and two works of his were included in the exhibition organized by the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts.

At the twelfth Itinerant exhibition, in 1884, Dubovskoy showed a small landscape, Winter, which was highly praised and bought by the noted collector Pavel Tretyakov. In 1889–90, Dubovskoy painted his best known work, It Has Become Quiet, which treats the theme of stillness before a storm with an extreme of tonal contrast that verges on stylization. It Has Become Quiet, which made the artist famous, was included in the eighteenth Itinerant exhibition and bought for the Winter Palace.

Dubovskoy gained a reputation for painting landscapes expressing subjective feelings, and he painted in many parts of Russia and abroad, including Greece, Italy, France, Switzerland, and Germany. He also created many landscapes in the southern parts of Russia, including the Azov region, where he was born and grew up (in the town of Novocherkassk). Dubovskoy spent the summer of 1889 at the home of his fellow Itinerant artist Nikolai Yaroshenko in Kislovodsk, in the Caucasus. Together with Yaroshenko, he traveled on horseback along the Voenno-Gruzinskaia (Military Georgian) road, sketching and painting various sites.

Night on the Southern Shore was created during the most fruitful period of Dubovskoy's artistic career. This work, most likely set in the Caucasus, has a monumental feel, stemming from its powerful composition and highly generalized forms, and at the same time transforms the commonplace into something enigmatic and even poetic. Capturing the effect of glimmering phosphorescent moonlight in southern Russia, Night on the Southern Shore is characteristically Romantic in its strong contrast of light and dark. Its Romantic treatment of nature and dramatic lighting effects seem partly indebted to those of Arkhip Kuindzhi (1842–1910), one of the major Russian landscape painters of the mid-nineteenth century, whose work was of interest to many Russian artists. Night on the Southern Shore also has its roots in the Romantic seascapes of the maritime painter Ivan Aivazovsky (1817–1900).

In 1898, the year Night on the Southern Shore was painted, Dubovskoy received the title of Academician and became a member of the Academy of Fine Arts. He taught at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts beginning in 1909, and in 1911 was appointed Professor of Landscape Painting.

According to Dr. Grigory Goldovsky, the present lot was inherited by the artist's son, Sergei Nikolaevich Dubovsky, and is documented as work number 185 in the listing of works that belonged to the Dubovskoy family, and as number 100 in a deed of inheritance from 1938. Both listings are now held in the archives of the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.