Reuven Rubin

Acquired as a gift from the artist by the father of the present owner, circa 1930-32
Thence by descent to the present owner

Tel Aviv, Egged Eretz Israel Artists, First Exhibition, 1930, no. 39
New York, Montross Gallery, Rubin, 1930, no. 16
London, Arthur Tooth & Sons Galleries, Paintings of Palestine, 1930
Tel Aviv, The Rubin Museum, Home Visit: Rubin's Paintings from Public and Private Collections, 1998, illustrated in the catalogue no. 22

The Rubin Museum, Rubin Portrays His Friends, Tel Aviv, 1986, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue
Carmela Rubin & Shira Naftali, eds., The Rubin Hebrew Aleph-Bet Book, Tel Aviv, 2004, illustrated in detail, unnumbered

The medium is oil on canvas. The canvas is not lined. The work is in very good overall condition. There is some mild frame rubbing. The paint has retained nice dimension. Under UV: there is some very minor inpainting near the left edge associate with frame rubbing, and a handful of scattered small spots of inpainting, each under dime-sized. The colors are clear and the work presents very well.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Rubin’s charming portrait from 1929 depicts Danny, a young boy in Rubin’s Tel Aviv neighborhood, the son of members of the burgeoning cultural scene, Dora and David Rosolio. Daniel Rosolio grew to be one of the founding members of Kibbutz Kabri in the north of Israel and in the 1970s and 80s he served as a member of the Israeli Parliament.

Long before he had his own children, Rubin delighted in portraying the children of his friends. These portraits enabled the artist “to identify and adopt a childish, primal vision, a sense of wonder in discovering the surrounding world." (The Rubin Museum, Rubin Portrays His Friends, Tel Aviv, 1986, unnumbered page)

The subject of the fisherman and his catch recurs in Rubin’s works throughout his career, expressing the artist’s view of man in harmony with nature. The work in the most direct dialogue with this portrait is his masterpiece, painted just two years earlier, now in the collection of the Jewish Museum, NY, The Goldfish Vendor (fig.1). Here, a live goldfish has also been plucked from his bowl, but this time, not in the mischievous grip of a curious child, but in the delicate grasp of the vendor lovingly examining  his livelihood.

In both works, the transparent  goldfish bowl is filled with sea-blue water. In Boy with Goldfish, it is the reflection of the boy’s blue  jumper which evokes the fish swimming freely in the sea. In The Goldfish Vendor, the sea itself is reflected in the bowl. The colors in Boy with Goldfish mimic the outdoors, the Mediterranean colors of Tel Aviv, earth and sky, sand and sea, recalled in a seemingly simple interior, decorated with a single pink curtain.

The goldfish bowl and fish are for Rubin a symbol of the potential bounty of the land. “Embodying a Matisse-like joie de vivre and permeated with crisp light, it implies the blossoming of bountifulness, while also bringing the world out-of-doors into the room." (op. cit.)

The physical proximity between the boy and the goldfish represents a recurrent theme in Rubin’s canvasses – the almost symbiotic relationship between people and their domesticated animals, metaphoric of the strong bonding to the land. Even in this portrait of a little boy, the goldfish is not merely a pet for the child’s amusement. The presence of goldfish may also allude to Jewish tradition, "which recognizes fish as metaphor of fertility and abundance. Associated on canvas with a child, this symbol is apt to imply a promise for the future” (op. cit.)