Lot 310
  • 310

Alexei Alexeevich Harlamoff

Estimate
150,000 - 250,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Alexej Alexejewitsch Harlamoff
  • The Artist and His Model, 1875
  • signed A. Harlamoff (lower left)
  • oil on canvas
  • 20 by 24 in.
  • 50.8 by 61 cm

Provenance

Sale: Sotheby's New York, October 29, 1981, lot 153, illustrated
Private collection, New York
Thence by descent

Catalogue Note

Harlamoff portrayed reading women many times in his later work, and he depicted this young reader again in a pastel study (Sotheby's, London, June 23, 1983, lot 605).

The mirror in this painting reveals Harlamoff in his studio in Paris, bd. de Rochechouart 57bis. By disguising his self-portrait in a mirror, the artist evokes the well-known imagery of Rembrandt and Velazquez, two Old Masters whom he is known to have admired (as noted by Ivan Turgenev and Alexei Bogoliubov).

This present lot also underscores Harlamoff's talent for rendering precious textiles. He had already proven this skill in his early works, especially in the masterpiece Young Man playing a String Instrument which hangs in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.