Alexei Petrovich Bogoliubov

M.V. Yuzefovich, acquired directly from the artist in 1854
Private Collection, New York, acquired by the 1930s
Thence by descent

This painting has been recently restored and should be hung as is. The condition is excellent. The canvas has been lined using Beva-371 as an adhesive and seems to be still stretched on its original stretcher. The paint layer has been cleaned and varnished. The architecture in the foreground in generally lovely condition, with no abrasion from previous cleanings or notable damages in the sky. Occasional paint losses and the attending restorations are visible ultraviolet light yet these are not symptomatic of any large problem. The restoration is concise and isolated to these small paint losses. Overall the condition is extremely good. 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."

Alexei Bogoliubov is considered one of Russia's greatest nineteenth-century marine and landscape painters. His background was atypical for an artist, for he first attended military school and served in the Russian Navy, developing a passion for exploration and the sea. The present lot dates to the early 1850s, when he was a student at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts studying under master Maxim Vorobiev. At that time Bogoliubov was increasingly influenced by the style of Ivan Aivazovsky, his close friend and mentor, though the present lot bears a closer resemblance to the canonical oeuvre of eighteenth-century Italian artist Giovanni Antonio Canaletto. Bogoliubov later traveled extensively throughout Western Europe, and all his contemporaries—including the likes of Corot and Daubigny, Repin and Vereshchagin—were impressed by his awesome talent.

In the 1850s, Bogoliubov painted multiple panoramas of the Neva embankment, perhaps none more famous than his View of St. Petersburg which now hangs in the State Russian Museum. It remains a little known fact, however, that the Museum's painting is a variation painted after an original sold to Mikhail Yuzefovich, a statesman from Kiev. The second version was later acquired by Tsar Nicholas I for the Imperial Collection, but it was not quite identical to the original, which the Tsar rejected for one simple reason: a ship at the center of the composition appeared to fly a French flag, and he demanded the flag be Russian. Bogoliubov repainted this flag for the Tsar, and later wrote about both paintings in his memoires:

Contemplating my own happiness, I sat down to work and painted View of St. Petersburg from the Neva looking onto the Winter Palace. Yuzefovich, the statesman from Kiev, came to me and purchased it. I painted another. Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna came to my studio and requested that I send the picture to the palace. After three days I received her letter: "Captain Bogoliubov! The Sovereign very much liked your picture, he will take it, but he orders that you change the flag on the ship in the foreground, for you have made it French! It is not appropriate for the times. Maria  ["...for the times" refers to Russia's concurrent involvement in the Crimean War against a coalition of France, Britain and Turkey]" (A.P. Bogoliubov, Zapiski moriaka-khudozhnika, Samara, 2006, p. 61).

In his monographic article "Memoirs of A.P. Bogoliubov," written according to the words of the artist's brother, Nikolai Petrovich Bogoliubov, A. Novitsky wrote a slightly different account of the creation of the present lot, calling it View of Petersburg from the Neva to the Winter Palace:

At this time a landowner, Yuzefovich, had commissioned him to paint a picture, a view of the Neva from the Troitsky bridge. Alexei Petrovich worked on it in the workshop of sculptor Baron P.K. Klodt ... Alexei Petrovich executed the picture to completion and it was a success in the best possible way. Having seen it, Baron Klodt was delighted: "For whom did you paint it?" Alexei Petrovich told him. – "If I were in your place I would not give it up. You can paint it again, but this one you have is so good, I would advise you to take it to the Sovereign." Alexei Petrovich did exactly that. The next morning he carried the picture to Count Adlerburg, asking him to present it to the Emperor. "After several days," as Nikolai Petrovich tells the story, "we were sitting and drinking tea when a courier from the palace suddenly appeared. 'It seems that the Sovereign is happy with the picture, and he has ordered me to ask how much the artist wishes to receive for it, and also to express his desire that just one thing be changed: that the French flag flying above the vessel be replaced with a Russian one...' Having heard this remark, Alexei Petrovich grew frightened, as if this might forfeit his opportunity to go abroad, and he quickly went to the conference-secretary of the Academy, V.I. Grigorovich, with the request that it be reported to the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, who was then—due to the death of Duke Lejhtenbergsky—the president of Academy, assuring her that the French flag was painted there absolutely by chance, because it appeared to him to be just a lovely dab of paint. Several days later, the courier came from Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna with a note that put the artist back at ease, saying that the Emperor had no doubt at all about his patriotic sentiments, but wishes only that the flag, which seems (and the word seems was underlined) French be altered to Russian" (Russian Archive 1897, book 1, p. 377-378).

If one were to trust Novitsky's story, the first version of the picture was acquired by Tsar Nicholas I and the second by M.V. Yuzefovich. In Bogoliubov's memoires, however, the artist specifies that the first version was acquired by M.V. Yuzefovich, and the second version by Nicholas I. Considering the fact that the present lot is signed and dated, and, congruent with Bogoliubov's personal memoires, the flag at center still appears in its original form, it logically follows that this is the first version of the picture, Bogoliubov's original rendition of View of St. Petersburg sold to Yuzefovich in the 1850s. The second version—Petersburg at Sunset, with the image of the vessel sailing under the Russian flag—was acquired by Nicholas I and presented to his son, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, who placed it in the Marble Palace. That second version is now stored in the State Russian Museum (oil on canvas, 103 by 151cm, inventory no. 2838). The "Landowner Yuzefovich," mentioned by Novitsky and identified as a statesman by the artist, was none other than Mikhail Vladimirovich Yuzefovich (1802-1889).

Yuzefovich was a man of many titles: active privy councilor, deputy commissioner of education in the Kiev district, chairman of the Kiev Archeological Commission, member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and the Copenhagen Royal Society of Northern Antiquarians. He was also a poet, though of mediocre talent, yet among his many acquaintances were Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, T.G. Shevchenko, V.A. Zhukovsky, the composer Glinka, the generals Raevsky (both father and son), and even Honoré de Balzac.

He was born in the village of Sotnikovka in the Poltava province, on an estate which had been in the family since the seventeenth century. His ancestors were Cossacks who served Polish kings in wars with the Turks and in thanks they were welcomed to the Szlachta, or Polish nobility, and given Polish names. Yuzefovich attended boarding school at Moscow University, and upon completion of his studies he began military service, and from 1826 to 1829 he served in the Caucasus, participating in the Persian and Turkish wars. He was decorated with two awards for his bravery, which was exceptional even in the Caucasian army, and his name was soon known far and wide. In 1839 he retired at the rank of major, and it was then that he took on a service role in the ministry of national education. He was later selected as a member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and appointed chairman of the Kiev Archaeological Commission, overseeing the publication of the "Archive of Southwest Russia," as well as other significant historic-archaeographical editions. Yuzefovich more or less reformed the commission, recreating it as the invaluable scientific research establishment it is today.

Perhaps most significantly, Yuzefovich was well-known for being a fierce Russian nationalist who opposed the revival of Ukrainian language and culture, which he considered subversive and potentially linked to Austrian and Polish enemies of Russia. His recommendations were incorporated into the Ems Ukaz, sometimes referred to as the Yuzefovich Ukaz, which was signed by Tsar Alexander II in 1876 and severely restricted the use of Ukrainian language. Additionally, it was under Yuzefovich's initiative that the monument to Bohdan Khmelnytsky—the 17^th-century hetman who led an uprising for Ukrainian autonomy but was ultimately responsible for transferring Ukraine to Russian rule—was built in Kiev in 1888.

Surely it was Yuzefovich's interest in geographical documents and his deeply rooted Russian nationalism that led him to commission such a masterpiece from Bogoliubov, the most talented and relevant artist he would encounter; Bogoliubov still may have been a student at the Academy, but he was already known for his technique and his views of St. Petersburg, and he would go on to become the seascape artist most closely associated with the Russian Imperial family.

View of St. Petersburg was acquired by Judith and Aaron Mnuchin and hung in their New York City apartment on Park Avenue by the 1930s. The Mnuchins lived near Kiev in Ukraine in the nineteenth century. The picture has been passed down through the family until its present and unprecedented appearance at auction.

 

FIG 1 Alexei Bogoliubov, View of St. Petersburg, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
FIG 2 Giovanni Canaletto, Grand Canal: Looking North-East from the Palazzo Balbi to the Rialto Bridge, Ca' Rezzonico, Venice