Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky

Plaza Art Galleries
Major Ivan Zhitkov, Litchfield, Connecticut
Mrs. Olga Ploschek, Litchfield, Connecticut (widow of the above)
Olson Art, New York
Acquired from the above, 1977
Thence by descent

Ivan Aivazovsky arrived in the United States in the fall of 1892 with the intention of visiting the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 to which he contributed twenty paintings. Prior to his American journey, in an interview with a reporter for Russki Vestnik, Aivazovsky expressed his desire to revisit the Atlantic Ocean, ``my main purpose for this journey is to see the ocean once more and to renew my impressions of the journey taken in the 1840s.  I am fond of those impressions, of those sceneries with limitless water.  One looks at the often changing views, feels a calmness and a strong desire to capture everything…everything in order to reproduce them on canvas (as quoted in Shahen Khachaturian, ``Aivazovsky in America,’’ p. 18).

The majesty of Niagara Falls was among the natural wonders that most lured Aivazovsky to America (see fig. 1).  Aivazovsky’s sketch book from his American sojourn is preserved in the archives of Theodosia’s art gallery, and is filled with views of Niagara Falls and the Atlantic ocean. His series of paintings depicting Christopher Columbus’ life and discovery of America was begun in 1888-1889, as he wanted these works to be included in the great Chicago Exposition of 1893.  The present lot is a rediscovered masterpiece from this series.  In the present work, Columbus is surrounded by his retinue on three launches and marks the very day he discovers America.  It is widely accepted that on Oct. 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus first landed on an island called by its native inhabitants, Guanahani, which he renamed San Salvador.  Columbus explored the island and others nearby and consequently sailed to Cuba and Hispaniola.

As M.S. Sargisian noted in his article "Ayvasovski in America", the archives of the Federal gallery in Theodosia, named after Aivazovsky, has preserved a handwritten list by the artist, dated July 10, 1892, which lists the twenty paintings that Aivazovsky intended to send to the Chicago exposition. Among them, five paintings devoted to the Columbus theme were included, and the present lot was listed as number 2, Columbus, encircled by his retinue, disembarks at the shore in San Salvador Island.  According to Sargisian, in the summer of 1892, Aivazovsky sent the twenty paintings to the Fine Arts Academy in St. Petersburg so that fifteen would be chosen for the major Chicago exhibition.  The newspaper Novoy Vremya of 1892 noted that Aivazovsky’s participation in the Chicago exposition assured Russia’s success.

In 1893, Aivazovsky gifted two historical paintings to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. as a mark of gratitude for America’s assistance in the severe Russian famine of 1891-1892 (see fig. 2 for one example). Aivazovsky and his wife traveled extensively throughout America at this time, though weariness and business affairs in St. Petersburg precluded the couple from actually visiting the Chicago Fair in March of 1893.