Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky

Private Collection, London
Acquired directly from the above, circa 1980

Possibly Paris, 17ème Exposition des Ouvrages des Artistes Vivants, 1857, listed as Marine, soleil couchant

G.Caffiero and I.Samarine, Seas, Cities and Dreams: The Paintings of Ivan Aivazovsky, London: Alexandria Press, 2000, p. 217, no. 152, illustrated
S.Khachatrian, Aivazovsky, Well-known and Unknown, Samara: Agni, 2000, p.95, illustrated

The following condition report has been supplied by: Hamish Dewar Ltd, Fine Art Conservation, 14 Mason's Yard, Duke Street St James's, London SW1Y 6BU tel + 44 (0)20 7930 4004, fax + 44 (0)20 7930 4100, hamish@hamishdewar.co.uk www.hamishdewar.co.uk Structural Condition The canvas has been lined and this is ensuring an even and secure structural support. Paint surface The paint surface has an even varnish layer. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows minimal retouchings, the most significant of which are: 1) four very thin hairline retouchings running vertically up from the lower horizontal framing edge, 2) very thin lines corresponding to the central vertical stretcher bar, and 3) an area in the pale clouds in the upper right of the sky, which measures approximately 7 x 1 cm. There are other very small spots and lines of inpainting. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in very good and stable condition with minimal retouching in the past and no further work is required.
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This stunning seascape dating from the important six months which Aivazovsky spent in Paris in 1857. The 1850s are considered one of the most important decades in his oeuvre, and it was during this period spent in the French capital in 1857 that he became the first foreign artist ever to receive the prestigious Légion d'Honneur, an exceptional honour even for French painters. He exhibited in the Paris Salon of that year and was lauded in the highest circles of French society.

The present seascape employs the pink-yellow palette of what is arguably his best-known work from this decade The Ninth Wave (1850, The Russian Museum), but in a subtler context and pared of the ferocity of the earlier work. The tranquillity of evening, particularly that of the Italian dusk, is a subject that Aivazovsky returned to often, yet few paintings radiate a sense of unhurried calm more beautifully than the present panorama, from the ripples in the foreground to the single yellow sail on the horizon. The romance of the Neapolitan sailing boats in the present work, with their patched sails, loose canvas shelters and jaunty intersecting masts clearly entranced the young Armenian and can be seen in some of his best-known canvases in Russian museum collections, including Bay of Naples, 1841 (The Peterhof State Museum).

Aivazovsky first visited Italy in 1840 and spent the summer of 1841 on the Gulf of Naples, exhibiting regularly in Italy, where, as The Art Gazette in St Petersburg reported, he caused a sensation: "Aivazovovsky's pictures in Rome are judged the best in the exhibition... the palaces of noblemen and society venues are all astir with talk of the landscape painter from Southern Russia; the newspapers have sung his praises loudly and all agree that only Aivazovsky depicts light, air and water so truthfully and convincingly" (quoted in N.Novouspensky, Ivan Aivazovsky, Painter of the Sea, 1995, p.14).