Mikhail Fedorovich Larionov

The canvas has been laid on board and is slightly lifting in places. There are fine lines of craquelure in places. UV light reveals a few flecks of retouching, most notably in the background to the right of the figure and long the lower edge. Held in a moulded plaster frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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Painted when the artist was only nineteen years old, Autumn Twilight is among the earliest paintings by Larionov ever to be offered at auction. According to the listing of the artist's works by Ilya Zdanevich, from 1898 to 1903 Larionov produced mainly sketches and studies – however, full scale oil paintings from this period are extremely rare. The everyday scene of a lady walking her dog in the park is characteristic of these early landscape studies and urban sketches which provide such a contrast to the more conceptual subjects of his mature years. The subject of this painting immediately recalls pictures by Renoir and in the loose brushwork one can already observe the influences of other leading Impressionists whose style Larionov adopted for the next six years and again in the 1930's (fig.1).