Alexei Alexeevich Harlamoff

Private Collection, Canada
Sale: Walker's Fine Art & Estate Auctioneers, Ottawa, June 15, 2005, lot 1, illustrated (as Young Beauty)
Richard Green, London
Acquired from the above

Olga Sugrobova-Roth and Eckard Lingenauber, Alexei Harlamoff: Catalogue Raisonné, Düsseldorf, 2007, p. 166, no. 127, illustrated p. 176, pl. 117

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work is in beautiful condition. The canvas is unlined. The stretcher is original. The painting is clean and varnished. There is one spot of retouching in the darkest colors in the lower center about an inch from the bottom edge, and possibly a few tiny spots around the right eye.
"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."

During the nineteenth century, Russian artists sought to break from the establishment’s previous dependence on European art and reaffirm their national heritage.  As a consequence of this national spirit, genre painting gained strength and with it an interest in peasant life, culture and traditional costumes.  Though he was equally proficient in religious subjects, like his contemporary William Bouguereau, Harlamoff specialized in portraits of peasant girls. In the present work, Harlamoff’s skillfully smooth rendering of the child’s features and complexion is enlivened by the broader, more impressionistic style with which he depicts her hair, clothes and the light background adding vitality to the image while simultaneously creating a foil for the sitter’s luminous profile.