- 22
Abram Efimovich Arkhipov
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Description
- Abram Efimovich Arkhipov
- Portrait of a Russian Peasant Girl
- signed in Cyrillic (lower left)
- oil on canvas
- 41 3/8 by 31 7/8 in.
- 105 by 81 cm
Provenance
Collection of Dante Quinterno
Catalogue Note
Portrait of a Russian Peasant Girl belongs to Arkhipov’s series of peasant girls, women and men whom he painted from the regions of Riazan Gubernia and Nizhny Novgorod. The ruddy and tanned Russian beauty in the present work is situated within a sun-dappled interior. Similar to Girl from Lesnoye, lot 17, this peasant girl appears to burst forth into the viewer’s space, occupying the entirety of the foreground with her towering form. She dons the traditional bright peasant costume, including a head scarf in brilliant red colors. Seated within the interior, sunshine pours through the thick yellow and white window and sets her form aglow.
The innovative perspective in the present composition leads the viewer to the upper right of the composition, where two peasant women can be seen passing the time in front of a sun-filled doorway. The work reveals brushstrokes of varying thickness which Arkhipov described as ``revealing form.’’ The interior provided Arkhipov an additional avenue to portray the dazzling effects of sunshine on objects, textures and surfaces. In reference to this peasant series, Arkhipov claimed, ``in my earlier work form superseded color; but now color supersedes form’’ (N.I. Rozhdestvenskaya, Narodny Khidozhnik A.E. Arkhipov, Moscow, 1930, p. 60).
The innovative perspective in the present composition leads the viewer to the upper right of the composition, where two peasant women can be seen passing the time in front of a sun-filled doorway. The work reveals brushstrokes of varying thickness which Arkhipov described as ``revealing form.’’ The interior provided Arkhipov an additional avenue to portray the dazzling effects of sunshine on objects, textures and surfaces. In reference to this peasant series, Arkhipov claimed, ``in my earlier work form superseded color; but now color supersedes form’’ (N.I. Rozhdestvenskaya, Narodny Khidozhnik A.E. Arkhipov, Moscow, 1930, p. 60).