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* 14. ARKHIPOV, ABRAM (1862-1930)

Village Scene, signed.

Oil on canvas, 74 by 102 cm.
70,000-90,000 GBP

Provenance: Collection of I.V. Belosnnezhny, Leningrad, c. 1980.
Russian Pictures, Sotheby’s London, 7 June 2016, lot 19.
Acquired at the above auction by the present owner.

Exhibited: Russkaya zhivopis XVIII - nachala XX veka iz chastnykh sobranii Leningrada, USSR Academy of Arts, Leningrad, 1980.

Literature: Exhibition catalogue, Russkaya zhivopis XVIII - nachala XX veka iz chastnykh sobranii Leningrada, Leningrad, Iskusstvo, 1980, p. 11, listed.


This lively village landscape was painted by Abram Arkhipov during one of his trips to the Russian North in the 1900s. The artist set out in the footsteps of Konstantin Korovin and Valentin Serov, whose works amazed their contemporaries with the beauty of the austere nature of this harsh region and inspired a number of painters to follow their example. Having first arrived in the White Sea region in 1902, Arkhipov remained loyal to these places for many years, working en plein air in the Arkhangelsk province almost every season and returning with many sketches and finished compositions.

The artist gave his preference to the most isolated and remote fishing villages. He did not pursue pure striking scenery or genre subjects. He was drawn by the deserted shores of the White Sea and the rivers flowing into it, captivated by the simplicity of life of the Pomors and the chiselled nature of their log buildings, shocked by the tonal richness of colours and the variety of colouristic tones and light in the supposedly monochrome North. “It felt so good,” the artist recalled, “that I wanted to give up everything, give up painting and just enjoy what you see, experience this merging with nature, feel a different life, full of such wealth, such energy and such freedom, none of which any longer surrounded me in Moscow at that time.” (Rozhdestvenskaya N.I., Narodnyj khudozhnik A.E. Arkhipov. Moscow, 1930. p. 27-28.)

Village Scene is executed in a free impasto manner with a sculptured, dynamic brushstroke, and is one of the wonderful examples of Arkhipov’s northern landscapes. A wide, low sky covered with clouds, brightened, muted shades of a foreground that is not rich in vegetation, abandoned harness, a village fence, outbuildings that convey the harsh daily life of the inhabitants of this unprosperous village, and several skinny trees - this is the whole set of elements from which Arkhipov’s canvas creates a gentle and a piercing poetic image of the Russian North.



The present lot as listed in the 1980 catalogue. s

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