ID 412526
Lot 34 | Old Moscow
Estimate value
£ 80 000 – 120 000
Provenance: Estate of the artist.
Acquired from the above by Arno Babajanian, Soviet composer and pianist, in 1968.
Thence by descent.
Acquired from Ara Babajanian, the son of the above, by the present owner.
Private collection, Europe.
The work is accompanied by a letter from Ara Babajanian, confirming the provenance of the work.
Authenticity certificate from the expert T. Zelyukina.
Authenticity certificate from the expert I. Geraschenko.
Literature: L. Budkova, D. Sarabianov, Pavel Kuznetsov, Moscow, Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1975, p. 354, pl. 84, illustrated; No. 449, listed.
M. Kiselev, Peizazh sovetskikh khudozhnikov 1917–1974, Moscow, Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1975, illustrated on the cover; pp. 52, 53, illustrated and listed.
D. Sarabianov (ed.), Pavel Kuznetsov. Izbrannye proizvedeniya, Moscow, Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1988, No. 90, illustrated and listed.
There is a palpable sense in Old Moscow, which Pavel Kuznetsov painted soon after his return from Paris, of the artist’s infatuation with French painting: the greenery blanching in the heat and bright sunlight, the little white, blue and yellow houses with their pink roofs, the luminous pale blue of the sky, pierced in the distance by the silhouette of a church and bell tower and the lively shifting structural colour of the road receding into the distance – all these features awaken recollections of Paul Cézanne’s views of Aix-en-Provence and L’Estaque, of Kuznetsov’s conversations with André Derain and of that whole round of Parisian impressions and meetings which inspired the artist to create several urban landscapes “of the new type” in the mid-1920s.
In these landscapes, Kuznetsov returns, as it were anew, to the fresh en plein air painting, with which he had started – to his Courtyard in Saratov or the works he created in the studio of Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin. This return to en plein air, however, is linked to a new stage in the development of his own painting system, when his earlier principles of decorativeness and elegance of texture are enriched by deeply-weighed considerations of the rhythmic structure in a composition.
The measured rhythm of the town buildings rising towards the sky and the bushes cushioning them, painted sometimes with a dry brush or by contrast with a soft brush saturated with paint, the vertical lines of the church and the fluent brushstrokes of the foliage that seems suspended over the road, lend the work a combination of painterly and graphic qualities that are particularly effective.
The painting comes from the distinguished collection of Arno Babajanian, where it arrived straight from the artist’s studio. It bears an inscription from 1968 by Kuznetsov’s widow Elena Bebutova, confirming the authenticity of the work.
The present lot as illustrated on the cover of M. Kiselev 1975 publication
The present lot as listed in the artist’s catalogue raisonné
The present lot as illustrated in D. Sarabianov's 1988 monograph on the artist
Address of auction |
MacDougall Arts Ltd. 33 St James’s Square SW1Y 4JS London United Kingdom | ||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Preview |
| ||||||||||||||
Phone | +44 20 7389 8160 | ||||||||||||||
Phone | +7 495 799 4683 | ||||||||||||||
Fax | +44 (0) 20 7389 8170 | ||||||||||||||
Buyer Premium | 27 % | ||||||||||||||
Conditions of purchase | Conditions of purchase | ||||||||||||||
Business hours | Business hours
|
Related terms
Frequently asked questions
First of all, you should register to be able to purchase at auction. After confirming your email address, enter your personal information in your user profile, such as your first name, last name, and mail address. Choose a lot from the upcoming auction and the maximum amount you want to place on it. After confirmation of your choice, we will send your application by e-mail to the appropriate auction house. If the auction house accepts a request, it will participate in the auction. You can view the current status of a bid at any time in your personal account in the "Bids" section.
Auctions are performed by auction houses and each of the auction houses describes their terms of auction. You can see the texts in the section "Auction information".
The results of the auction are published within a few days after the end of the auction. In the top menu of the site, find the tab "Auctions". Click on it and you will be on the auction catalog page, where you can easily find the category "Results". After opening it, select the desired auction from the list, enter and view the current status of the interested lot.
The information about the auction winners is confidential. The auction winner will receive a direct notification from the auction house responsible with instructions for further action: an invoice for payment and the manner in which the goods will be received.
Each of the auction houses has its own payment policy for the won lots. All auction houses accept bank transfers, most of them accept credit card payments. In the near future you will find detailed information for each case in the section "Auction information" on the page of the auction catalog and the lot.
Shipment of the won lot depends on its size. Small items can be delivered by post. Larger lots are sent by courier. Employees of the auction houses will offer you a wide range to choose from.
No. The archive serves as a reference for the study of auction prices, photographs and descriptions of works of art.