Vladimir Egorovich Makovsky

Held in original ornate gilt frame.
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This intimate depiction of a couple at the piano is a classic example of Vladimir Makovsky's preference for episodes from everyday life over dramatic genre scenes, and is coloured with his famously gentle sense of humour. As Elena Zhuravleva remarks in her monograph on the artist, though this scene is not intrinsically comic, one cannot help but smile at the seriousness with which the couple attack the piece and their brilliantly captured expressions. 'The old lady is composed and confident, which cannot be said of her partner. Uncomfortable and clearly uneasy, he is nervous of stopping; his fingers nervously tap at the keys as he presses himself towards the piano with a bewildered expression, leaning as close as he can to the music.' (E.Zhuravleva, Vladimir Makovsky, Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1972). The male figure is in fact the artist's father, Egor Makovsky, who posed for several of his son's works, including Making Jam (1876). 

 

Delighted by the composition, a contemporary critic wrote, 'This really is a short story in a painting, one which calls to mind several pages by Gogol' (N.Alexandrov, in Storonny Zritel', Khudozhestvenny Zhurnal, 1881, No.1, p.41). The closely observed trappings of the bourgeois interior - the paintings, brass lamp, stacked books and damask cloth – certainly recall Gogol's vignettes of archetypes of Russian society of the first half of the nineteenth century, though perhaps a closer comparison can be found in his literary contemporary, Anton Chekhov, whose first short stories were published in the 1880s.

Makovsky's artistic style reached maturity in the 1880s: 'his palette became brighter and his manner lighter and freer' (idem, p.54). Several of his small 'picture-novellas' were acquired by his close friend, Pavel Tretyakov, and the public would rush to Makovsky's exhibitions, recalling the success of the scenes of the broad appeal of American everyday life by Norman Rockwell.  His popularity among the growing middle classes persuaded Makovsky to repeat his most successful compositions.

 

An earlier version of this lot is reproduced in the family photo album, inscribed with the handwritten title V 4 ruki (fig.1), and published on page 80 of the monograph by Zhuravleva, who dates it to 1880.  The present version is clearly dated 1889 which may indicate that the artist considered it the more complete work.