Lev Felixovich Lagorio

Acquired by the grandparents of the present owners in the 1920s
Thence by descent

Structural Treatment The artist's canvas has been laid onto a board which has backing stretcher-bars and is securely held within the framing arrangement. Paint surface The paint has an even varnish layer. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows scattered retouchings, the most significant of which are: 1) along the upper horizontal framing edge, 2) a line parallel to, and 4 cm in from, the right vertical framing edge, 3) a thin, horizontal line, approximately 5 cm in length in the hills in the centre of the composition, and 4) a thin, vertical line, approximately 3 cm in length, in the lower left corner. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in good and stable condition and no further work is required.
"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."

Lev Lagorio's early artistic development is inexorably linked with his birthplace -  the Crimea – and, throughout his life, he would often turn for inspiration to its sights and lush environs. At the very start of his career, he studied with Aivazovsky and was then taught at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts under the Romantic landscape painter, Maxim Vorobiev. On graduating from the Academy, his travel scholarship took him to France, Italy, Switzerland and Holland, but he also travelled in and around Russia painting the Baltic coast, the mountains of the Caucasus and the rocky islands of the Norwegian and Finnish fjords as well as views of St. Petersburg from the banks of the Neva. However it was the shores of the Black Sea which Lagorio depicted with most fondness, and the artist spent many summers in Sudak in the Crimea, where he had set up a second studio.

 

In 1893 Lagorio devoted an entire exhibition to his paintings of the Crimea and a major part of the catalogue for Lagorio's 1906 posthumous exhibition in Petersburg was dedicated to his Crimean subjects including Kuchuk-Lambat, Yalta, Simeiz, Theodossia, Alushta, Sebastopol and the outskirts of Sudak. In 1889, the year in which the offered lot was painted, Lagorio showed two Crimean landscapes at the Academy of Arts titled Yalta and Gurzuf. Exemplary of the artist's best work, By the Sea, Crimea is distinguished by its strong composition, a decorative, yet faithful colour scheme and effective use of light. In this blissful scene, Lagorio has perfectly captured the immediate impression of a hot summer's day on the Black Sea coast.

 

We are grateful to Elena Nesterova, Senior Researcher at the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, for writing this note.