Stanislav Yulianovich Zhukovsky

Original canvas. There is a layer of discoloured varnish and light surface dirt. There are lines of craquelure in places to the centre with some flecks of paint loss e.g. above the chair. UV light reveals an area of retouching in the lower left corner, two smaller areas in the upper right corner. There are spots of infilling to the left frame of the door and a line of retouching approximately 4cm in legth to the middle right door. Held in a painted plaster frame and unexamined out of frame.
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After the 1917 Revolution, Zhukovsky along with many fellow artists, fought to safeguard the art collections of Russia's noble estates which now lay vacant after their expropriation by the Bolsheviks. During the second half of the 1910s Zhukovsky nevertheless embarked on a cycle of paintings depicting both interior and exterior views of these grand buildings.

It is the interior views especially which reveal the artist's reverence for the antique and aligns his approach with that of the miriskusstniki, or World of Art group, whose aim was also to preserve the art of their forebears. Zhukovsky's depictions of Russia’s great estates carry a deep emotional resonance, evoking the indissoluble link which the artist believed existed between man and his environment. The surrounding landscape is always a feature of these interior views, either glimpsed through an open window, or indicated by the bright rays of sunlight streaming across the furnishings of the cool, shadowy rooms.

Zhukovsky studied under Isaak Levitan and Konstantin Korovin in Moscow; his compositions combine the lyrical landscapes of the former with the vibrant colours of the latter's plein-air style.