MacDougall Auctions 28 November 2008
28 November 2008
* 20. KONDRATENKO, GAVRIIL 1854-1924
View of Gurzuf, Crimea signed and dated 1901
Oil on canvas, 98 by 68 cm.
90,000-120,000
Provenance: Private collection, Russia.
Private collecton, USA.
Authenticity has been confirmed by Vladimir Petrov.
Exhibited: Exhibition of St. Petersburg Union of Artists, St. Petersburg, 1904.
Literature: Journal Niva, St. Petersburg, 1904, N17, illustrated.
Journal Rodina, 1904, N 35, illustrated.
Related literature: For similar works see G. Romanov and A. Muratov, Artists of the Russian Salon (1850-1917), Zolotoi Vek, St. Petersburg 2004, p. 308.
A Russian landscape painter and a representative of the academic
salon trend in Russian landscape painting at the turn of
the century, Kondratenko was renowned for his Crimean landscapes.
After graduating from M. K. Klodt’s class in the St.
Petersburg Academy of Arts with a small gold medal and the title
of First Class Artist Grade 2 awarded to him for his work
Night in Bakhchisarai, Kondratenko retained a love for the lush
beauty of southern Russian nature throughout his life. Every
year he would head off to the Crimea or the Caucasus seeking
new inspiration, and would invariably return weighed down with
several dozen first class romanticised views. His numerous “exotic”
southern landscapes, which were painted in the traditions of
the seaside resort compositions of L. O. Premazzi, with the accompanying
lighting effects, moonlit nights and elegant figures,
enjoyed enormous success among the fashionable public of the
St. Petersburg salons during the 1880s and 1890s. For example,
Grand Prince Mikhail Nikolaevich purchased from the artist
View Of Kazbek and Stolovaya Mountain from the Environs of
Vladikavkaz,and Baron P. Derviz purchased The Ruins of an
Ancient Fortress Close to Balaclava; and the Crimean landscapes
Sevastopol by Moonlight (1882), Sudak Bay by Evening (1884) and
Bakhchisarai by Night came to be regarded as genuine masterpieces
even during his lifetime.
An example of Kondratenko’s popular Crimean canvases which
were so highly prized by his contemporaries is the work presented
here for auction, View of Gurzuf, Crimea. Its composition incorporates
the artist’s favoured motif of a rocky seashore over
which is diffused a hazy pre-sunset light. The representation of
such light effects was always Kondratenko’s forte.
The artist’s authority was so great that when in the 1880s he
again went to the Crimea to make some sketch studies and
came across a beggar woman in Sevastopol who turned out to
be a former Sister of Mercy he was able to solicit the assistance
of his influential acquaintances in the capital who were admirers
of his work, and quickly set up the “St. Petersburg
Guardianship Committee of the Sisters of the Red Cross” under
the patronage of the granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I,
Princess Yevgeniya Maksimilianovna Oldenburgskaya.
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.