Important European Collection of Russian Art, plus Other Properties
30 May 2020
§ 18. ANNENKOV, GEORGES (1889–1974)
Still Life with Bottles and Flowers, signed, further inscribed “#12” on the reverse.
Oil on canvas, 73 by 114 cm.
70,000–120,000 GBP
Provenance: Perez Art Museum, Miami.
Collection of George Campbell, Florida, c. 1975.
Important private collection, Europe.
Exhibited: Neizvestnaia Rossiia. Russkoe iskusstvo pervoi poloviny XX veka, Salle d'exposition du Quai Antoine Ier, Monaco, 25 June–27 August 2015.
Literature: X. Muratova, Neizvestnaia Rossiia. Russkoe iskusstvo pervoi poloviny XX veka, Milan, Silvana Editoriale, 2015, p. 388, No. 334, illustrated.
Still Life with Bottles and Flowers is one of Annenkov’s experimental paintings from his early days in Paris. The artist was later to recall that time as being the happiest and most emancipated as regards his creative work. In Russia, and then in France, he was kept extremely busy with stage design for the theatre, portrait commissions and drawings for books, and sometimes he could not find the time for serious plein air work or stage compositions. That is why in the early years after he had moved to Paris, when he was less inundated by a plethora of orders, it proved to be a period in which Annenkov could try to find a style of his own and work hard at “art for art’s sake”. Empty interiors and still lifes with glass vases, jugs and bottles, the recognisable outlines of which can be found in many of the artist’s works from the late 1920s and early 1930s, feature prominently in the compositions of that time.
The present lot as illustrated in X. Muratova, Neizvestnaya Rossiya. Russkoye iskusstvo pervoy poloviny XX veka, Milan, Silvana Editoriale, 2015, p. 388.
Notes on symbols:
* Indicates 5% Import Duty Charge applies.
Ω Indicates 20% Import Duty Charge applies.
§ Indicates Artist's Resale Right applies.
† Indicates Standard VAT scheme applies, and the rate of 20% VAT will be charged on both hammer price and premium.