- 312
Alexei Alexeevich Harlamoff
Estimate
60,000 - 80,000 USD
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Description
- Alexej Alexejewitsch Harlamoff
- Lady in a Hunting Costume, 1884
- signed in Cyrillic and dated 1884 (lower left)
- oil on canvas
- 23 1/2 by 18 5/8 in.
- 59.7 by 39.7 cm
Provenance
Demidoff Collection, Florence
Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, Florence
Sale: Sotheby's, Florence, April, 1969
Catalogue Note
Thanks to a photograph sent by Alexandre Tissot-Demidoff to the authors of the forthcoming Harlamoff catalogue raisonné, the identity of this sitter was recently uncovered to be Elena Petrovna Troubetskaya (1853-1917), second wife of Prince Pavel Pavlovitch Demidoff San Donato (1839-1885).
It seems that Harlamoff left Paris for Florence soon after Ivan Turgenev passed away in 1883, and in the fall of that year Prince Paul commissioned him to paint portraits of each member of his family. At that time Elena Demidoff was pregnant with her sixth child. Large families were not unusual for wealthy families in the late 19th century, and yet this portrait reveals strain in the face of the young, thirty-one year old Princess.
In the photograph of Prince Paul, a smaller version of Harlamoff's painting can be seen in the background; it is indistinctly signed by an unknown Italian artist, who was surely commissioned to reproduce the Russian's masterpiece. This replica remains in the collection of the Prince of Yugoslavia at his residence in Paris.
Prince Paul sent his own stately portrait to St. Petersburg where it was exhibited together with Harlamoff’s portraits of the Prince's children at the Peredvizhniki exhibition of 1884-1885 (evidently the Prince counted on the propagandistic effect of these paintings); they were later lost, and their whereabouts are still unknown. Perhaps due to its intimate character, the present lot remained in the Prince's villa in Florence until it was sold in 1969.
It seems that Harlamoff left Paris for Florence soon after Ivan Turgenev passed away in 1883, and in the fall of that year Prince Paul commissioned him to paint portraits of each member of his family. At that time Elena Demidoff was pregnant with her sixth child. Large families were not unusual for wealthy families in the late 19th century, and yet this portrait reveals strain in the face of the young, thirty-one year old Princess.
In the photograph of Prince Paul, a smaller version of Harlamoff's painting can be seen in the background; it is indistinctly signed by an unknown Italian artist, who was surely commissioned to reproduce the Russian's masterpiece. This replica remains in the collection of the Prince of Yugoslavia at his residence in Paris.
Prince Paul sent his own stately portrait to St. Petersburg where it was exhibited together with Harlamoff’s portraits of the Prince's children at the Peredvizhniki exhibition of 1884-1885 (evidently the Prince counted on the propagandistic effect of these paintings); they were later lost, and their whereabouts are still unknown. Perhaps due to its intimate character, the present lot remained in the Prince's villa in Florence until it was sold in 1969.