MacDougall Auctions 28 November 2008
28 November 2008
* 39. VOROBIEV, MAKSIM 1787-1855
View of Blagoveschensky Bridge and St. Petersburg Embankment signed, c. 1850-1855
Oil on canvas, 66.5 by 98 cm.
500,000-700,000
Authenticity certificate from the State Grabar Institute, experts A. Kiseleva and L. Gelienek.
Authenticity certificate from the State Tretyakov Gallery, experts I. Lomize and S. Usacheva.
Authenticity has been confirmed by Vladimir Petrov.
A founding father of Russian romantic landscape painting,
Vorobiev carved out a glittering artistic career for himself. The
son of a janitor at the Academy of Arts, from the age of 10 he
attended classes at the Academy and his hard work and talent
earned him the full complement of honours and awards available
to an artist in Russia in the first half of the 19th century.
In 1814 he was made an academician, in 1815 a lecturer of the
Academy, in 1823 a professor of the Academy, and in 1843 an
Honoured Professor.
Vorobiev’s works invariably received an enthusiastic reception
from both public and critics, and regular clients who appreciated
his talent included Emperor Nicholas I, Count Benkendorf
and M.S. Vorontsov. In response to their requests the artist was
frequently persuaded to repeat paintings which he had produced
previously. The most valuable part of his legacy is represented
by his St. Petersburg landscapes, which were for the most part
executed at a time when his abilities were at their peak.
Vorobiev’s work and teaching abilities were to influence many of
his pupils including Aivazovsky, Bogoliubov, Lagorio, Lebedev
and Chernetsov amongst others.
View of Blagoveschensky Bridge and St. Petersburg Embankment is one of
the last of Vorobiev’s famed series of St. Petersburg landscapes.
Throughout his life he painted architectural views of his beloved
St. Petersburg and its environs. They brought him fame, the recognition
of his contemporaries and advancement in the Academy.
Thus in 1809, upon graduating from the Academy of Arts with
his completed project View of the newly built church of Our Lady of
Kazan and its Environs, Vorobiev was awarded the grand gold
medal, which conferred on him not only personal nobility but
also a pension. In 1823, for his work View of Neva from the
Embankment by Troitsky Bridge in Moonlight the artist was awarded
the title of Professor of Perspective Painting. As a master of
topographical precision, Vorobiev spent many years executing
prestigious high-level commissions, creating a “snapshot” of a
Moscow as it was reconstructed after the 1812 war, together
with a portrayal of the Christian saints of Palestine and the military
theatre of the Russo-Turkish front. In such circumstances
the artist was frequently constrained in his choice of subjects,
periods and techniques. However, when he returned to St.
Petersburg he found he could work freely, and devoted an increased
amount of his attention to lighting effects, including
those of the evening and night-time, and to conveying the life,
atmosphere and essence of the city itself. The appearance in
St. Petersburg of new buildings, embankments, bridges and walls –
everything which adorned the northern capital city of the Russian
Empire and transformed it into a lovely classical metropolis –
was recorded with great talent on his canvases, which communicated
the artist’s delight in his subject. He would often depict the
same location or architectural motif at various times of the day
or during various seasons of the year and in varying weather
conditions. The compositions of his works were carefully thought
out. The harmonious relationships between sky and earth, expanses
of water and architectural forms invoked a sense of the
serenity, beauty and natural poetry of the material world. At the
same time Vorobiev was one of the first Russian artists to unify
the subjects of his works into tonal and colour images. He incorporated
soft silvery and bluish shades of sky into his depiction
of water and of the walls of buildings, and even into his
green tones. His was an innovative portrayal of Russian landscapes
for those times. The most romantic and emotional of his
works were his mature and late images of the northern capital
such as Sunrise over the Neva, 1827, An Autumn Night in St. Petersburg,
1835, in the Tretyakov Gallery; Sunset in the Environs of St.
Petersburg, 1832; The Neva Embankment with the Sphinxes of the
Academy of Arts, 1835; both held by the Russian Museum, Building
St. Isaac’s Cathedral, and Peter and Paul Fortress. They also include
View of Blagoveschensky Bridge and St. Petersburg Embankment.
The artist had already used this location as the subject of one of
his 1830s watercolours. The old pontoon bridge which had been
built a century before still crossed the river Neva from the more
contemporary St. Isaac’s square to Vasilievsky island. But now
the view had fundamentally changed: in place of the floating
bridge, Vorobiev depicted one of the principal sights of
St. Petersburg in the 1850s – the newly built eight arch cast iron
Blagoveshchensky bridge.
At the time it was, at 300 metres, the longest bridge in Europe,
and idle tongues used to say that during the building of this engineering
marvel (there was a swing bridge at the right bank, for
which a rotating swing system was employed in Russia for the
first time) Nicholas I promised the architect, Kerbedz, that he
would be promoted in rank for each arch, and for this reason
the engineer supposedly speedily revised the project in order to
incorporate an increase in the number of arches. Far down on
the right bank can be seen the hipped roofs of the Church of
the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which had been
built by Konstantin Ton for the Life-Guards Cavalry in 1849
and which had recently been consecrated. The dominant architectural
feature in the composition is the five domed structure of
St. Isaac’s Cathedral which rises dramatically up behind the
bridge, the basic structure of the cathedral having been completed
in 1842.
The meticulous topographical detail which was, without exception,
characteristic of every one of Vorobiev’s canvases not only
enables this work to be dated with a high degree of certainty to
between 1850 and 1854 (the period between the opening of the
bridge and the year the Chapel of Nikolai the Miracle Worker
was constructed, which does not feature in the work), but also
allows us to refer to this landscape as a unique historical document
of the time on which there is imprinted a lovely, but long
lost St. Petersburg scene (the Church of the Annunciation was
demolished in 1929 under the pretext of making way for a tram
system, and the bridge was rebuilt at the beginning of the 20th
century).
However, its value is not only historical. A romantic artist,
Vorobiev not only recorded the achievements of the capital’s
town planning work in the mid 19th century, but was also able
to perceive the city in a new way – in harmony with its dynamic
vibrancy, the boats gliding along the River Neva and even
one of the first steamships which as a back-up measure was also
equipped with sails, in the vacillating, ever changing atmosphere
of sunset.
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.