Vasily Ivanovich Vikulov

Acquired from the son of the artist by the present owner

Original canvas. There are abrasions along the edges and the canvas has worn through at the corners in places. The canvas has been folded back on itself along the tacking edges and the underlying layer of canvas shows through where the top layer has worn away. There is a layer of surface dirt. A canvas indentation and area of restoration is visible to the naked eye in the sky to the right of the steeple on the far right. Inspection under UV light reveals other minor scattered areas of restoration, largely confined to the edges. Held in decorative painted wooden frame with gilt details. Unexamined out of frame.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

In this painting dating from 1946 Vikulov captured the Leningrad celebrations of the first anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany. Given that Victory Day, celebrated on 9th May, is one of Russia’s most important holidays it is interesting to note that in the immediate post-war period it was an ordinary working day. The 1945 order of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet which introduced it as a public holiday had already been amended by 1947 restoring it as a working day, which it would remain until the 1960s.

For the first anniversary celebrations of 1946 Stalin ordered salutes to be fired in Moscow and the capitals of the other Soviet Republics, as well as Lvov, Koenigsberg and the Hero Cities of Leningrad, Stalingrad, Sevastopol and Odessa. Leningrad was the first city to receive the honorific title of ‘Hero City’, having survived a crippling siege lasting for 872 days, during which well over a million of its inhabitants perished either through starvation or German shelling. The city itself was badly damaged by the bombing. None of this suffering and destruction is visible in Vikulov’s view of the city, the buildings appear intact and large crowds have gathered on Troitsky Bridge to watch the fireworks. Vikulov also used artistic licence in his depiction of the city’s skyline, bringing both the Peter and Paul Fortress as well as the opposite bank of the Neva with the Admiralty and St Isaac’s, into the frame.