Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky

Konstantin R.Heiny, Prague
Sotheby's London, The Russian Sale, 14 December 1995, lot 149

Prague, Clam-Gallas Palace, The Slavic Institute, Exhibition of Russian Art, March 1935
Prague, The National Gallery, Exhibition of Russian Art, 1953
Pardubice, The Castle of Pardubice, Repin i russkaya zhivopis' XIX-XX vekov, November 1956
Istanbul, Türkiye İş Bankası, Seas, Cities and Dreams, 2001

Exhibition of Russian Art catalogue, Prague: The National Gallery, 1953, p.11, no.36
V.Fiala, Kartiny russkikh peizazhistov XIXv. v Cheshskikh sobraniyakh, Moscow: Nauka, 1970, p.103
V.Fiala, Russkaya zhivopis v sobraniyakh Chekhoslovakii, Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1974, p.61, listed, p.63 illustrated
G.Caffiero and I.Samarine, Seas, Cities and Dreams: The Paintings of Ivan Aivazovsky, London: Alexandria Press, 2000, p.234, plate 169, illustrated

There is a very small dent to the panel approximately 1/3 of the way down the left hand edge. Minor frame abrasion is visible to the left hand inner frame edge and there are some small spots of paint loss to the middle of the lower inner frame edge. The picture is clean and ready to hang. UV light reveals some spots of retouching to the left of the moon and the aforementioned dent, and to two horizontal lines top left and top right of the panel. A few further spots of minor retouching can be seen in places along the edge. Some remnants of the original varnish fluouresce opaque green to the very edges of the lower corners. Held in a moulded plaster and wood frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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The Brig Mercury in Moonlight is a rare reworking of an earlier canvas, The Brig Mercury Returns to the Russian Squadron  (The State Russian Museum, 1848). It is likely that one of Aivazovsky’s clients admired this earlier work and commissioned the present version, a minor masterpiece and one of his most important works on panel to come to light in recent years.

Famous for escaping attack by two Turkish ships near the Bosphorus on 14 May 1829, the Russian warship Mercury made for a popular patriotic subject for Russian painters. In a later canvas, The Brig Mercury Attacked by Two Turkish Ships (Feodosia Art Gallery, 1892), Aivazovsky depicts the Turkish 110-gun Selimie and 74-gun Real-bei either side of the smaller 18-gun Russian brig, dramatically engaged in battle. By contrast the composition of the present work is remarkable in its simplicity, calm and the depth of colour in the dark sea and night sky.  The shimmering moonlight and translucent waves illustrate that even on a small scale, Aivazovsky’s handling of paint and light is no less effective. 

The reverse bears the wax seal of an unidentified collector.