Mikhail Ivanovich Scotti

Distinguished Private Collection, St. Petersburg until 1917
Same collection as above, Berlin from 1917
Thence by descent to the present owner

The canvas has been lined. There is a layer of surface dirt and discoloured varnish. There are fine line of craquelure in places. UV light reveals a layer of opaque varnish and spots of retouching to the the top right and some retouching to an old repair to the lower centre. Held in a wooden frame and unexamined out of frame
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

As a series of gold and silver medals attests, Mikhail Scotti's outstanding artistic talent was apparent from his earliest genre scenes and portraits, such as that of the sculptor N.Pimenova (1835, State Tretyakov Gallery) or Portrait of Count Kutaisov with his children (1839, State Russian Museum). He studied in his native city of St Petersburg, where his father, Giovanni Scotti, also a painter, had brought up the family. However, Mikhail was clearly drawn to his Mediterranean ancestry, spending a substantial period of time in Italy during his twenties and returning to Western Europe towards the end of his life, having pursued a successful academic career in Russia from 1845-55.  

The offered lot dates from his first Italian period. Private Russian collections of his sketches from this period display his intense interest in everyday Italian rural life; it was while in Rome that he painted 'Italian Girl holding a Rose' (1842, State Russian Museum), which was awarded a prize by the St Petersburg Academy of Artists (P.Petrov, Sbornik materialov dlya istorii SPb Akademii khudozhestv za 100 let ee suschestovovaniya, Part 2, St Petersburg 1865, p.439) and he was a major contributor to exhibitions laid on for visiting Russian royalty.

Italian Scene is probably one of two pictures mentioned in correspondence between the director of travelling scholars in Rome, P.Krivtsov, and V.Grigorievich of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. In a letter of July the 8^th 1842, Krivtsov wrote: "The Society has acquired two pictures by Scotti through the efforts of V.Grigorievich. The first depicts a fortune-teller, the second some girls and a boy with flowers. Before he left the country, Grigorievich informed the committee that the price for both pictures is to be 1300 roubles, at least no less than 1200" (Archive of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire).  The committee purchased them for 1300 roubles, but Krivtsov's subsequent letter discloses that Scotti had a change of heart – he now demanded 2500 roubles for each. The committee begged Krivtsov to persuade the artist to stick to his initial asking price, but although his eventual decision is not recorded, 'Fortune-Telling' (1841) is known to have been in a private collection in Dresden for some time and this work also comes from a foreign collection, which suggests that in the end Scotti may well have retrieved the canvases and sold them in Italy rather than in Russia. In a letter written to I.Shelepev in March 1843 he reveals that he was used to selling off his paintings to Italians, since, 'without the means to study art seriously, I was blown by the winds of fortune'.

 

We are grateful to Dr. Ludmila Markina, head of the Department of Russian Painting, eighteenth to first half nineteenth century art at the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, for writing this note.