Konstantin Egorovich Makovsky

St Petersburg, Zal Obschestva Pooschreniya Khudozhestv, December 1888 and November 1907

Niva, No.17, 1889, p.437
Novoe Vremya, St Petersburg, No.11371, 7/20 November 1907
G.Romanov and A.Muratov, Khudozhniki Russkogo Salona (1850-1917), Zolotoi Vek, St Peterburg, 2004, p.391

The canvas has been striplined. The paint surface is dirty and the varnish has discoloured. There are areas of craquelure and paint abrasion in places. There are minor chips of paint loss in the lower right section and on the lower left edge. There is a slightly raised crease running down the left of the painting, approximately 10cm from the left edge. Held in a gold painted plaster frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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This delightfully stylised picture forms part of a cycle of sixteen allegorical pictures which were commissioned by Baron Sergei Pavlovich von Derviz (1863-1918) for the concert hall of his lavishly decorated house on the English Embankment in St Petersburg. At this stage in his career Makovsky had already been recognised as one of Russia's greatest artists: in 1878 he had been awarded the Order of St Anne, Third Class and his 1879 work, Mermaids, was bought by Tsar Alexander II for the State Hermitage Museum. He began his career as a painter of historical genre scenes but adapted to rapidly changing artistic trends such as the rococo revival made popular in the Paris Salon which forms the basis for this series. It was partly this versatility that won him the admiration of critics and public alike and made him one of the most highly paid Russian artists of the time.

The playful spirit and curves of this painting in particular draws on the work of Francois Boucher, but it is his exuberant colours - which 'sing like those of Rubens' as the correspondent of the Russian newspaper Evening Times wrote - that make this such an attractive series and even recalls the brilliant palette of Pontormo. Although Makovsky's broader style is far from the Italian Mannerists, the bright, even harsh and slightly unnatural colours of this particular series are united in a stark and flattened space that mirrors the distorted perspective of the latter's Renaissance frescoes. The nature of the commission dictated a degree of foreshortening and Makovsky takes advantage of the unusual perspective to enhance the sense of light and space. It was exhibited in St Petersburg in 1907 to great critical acclaim: the newspaper Novoe Vremya enthused that 'there had never been a more beautiful exhibition'.