Stanislav Yulianovich Zhukovsky

Original canvas. There is a layer of discoloured varnish and light surfac dirt. Uv light reveals a few minor spots of retouching in places. Held in a painted plaster frame and unexamined out of frame.
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Zhukovsky showed great promise at the Moscow College of Fine Art, Sculpture and Architecture, where he studied under Isaak Levitan and Konstantin Korovin. Indeed, it can be said of his compositions that they combine the lyricism of the former's mood landscapes, with the vibrant colours of the latter's plein-air style.

His talent was in evidence early on in his career; Pavel Tretyakov selected one of Zhukovsky's works for his collection at the twenty-fifth Imperial Academy Exhibition in St. Petersburg in 1897. However, despite his obvious abilities Zhukovsky was not granted a stipend to travel abroad as part of his studies on account of his being the son of a Polish nobleman.

After the 1917 Revolution, Zhukovsky along with many fellow artists, fought to safeguard the art collections of Russia's noble estates which now lay vacant after their expropriation by the Bolsheviks. Despite accusations from contemporary art historians that his works 'lacked proletariat conscience', during the second half of the 1910s Zhukovsky nevertheless embarked on a cycle of paintings depicting both interior and exterior views of these grand buildings.

It is the interior views especially which reveal the artist's reverence for the antique and aligns his approach with that of the miriskusstniki, or World of Art group, whose aim was also to preserve the art of their forebears.

Zhukovsky's depictions of the estates of Central Russia carry a palpable emotional resonance evoking the indissoluble link which the artist believed existed between man and his environment. The surrounding landscape is always a feature of these interior views, either glimpsed through an open window, or indicated by the bright rays of sunlight streaming across the furnishings of the cool, shadowy rooms.