Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin

A primary source of inspiration for Ivan Bilibin, a major Russian turn-of-the century graphic artist and children's book illustrator, was the tradition of Russian folk art. During his field expeditions to the Russian North between 1902 and 1904, Bilibin amassed a remarkable collection of works by local craftsmen, examples of which played a significant role in the development of his graphic style. The greater part of this collection subsequently formed the basis of the ethnographic section at the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. Bilibin also took photographs of wooden architecture that were published in some of the most influential scientific journals of that time as well as in several contemporary articles on folk art.

Although urged by his father to study law at St. Petersburg University in 1896, Bilibin was drawn to the arts, taking art classes in the studio of Anton Ažbè in Munich from the end of May to mid-July, 1898. In September of that year, Bilibin entered the art school of Maria Tenisheva in St. Petersburg, where he studied under the famous Russian Realist painter Ilya Repin until 1900. In 1899 the Imperial Stationery Office commissioned the twenty-three-year old Bilibin to produce a set of fairy-tale picture books—the genre with which he is generally identified.

Bilibin took up many projects during his prolific career—drawing for satirical journals in 1905, designing for the theater both in Russia and abroad (1904-36), and painting landscapes, but he always returned to book design.

In 1920 Bilibin left Russia for Egypt. He returned to Russia in 1936 and remained there until his death in 1942.

During his years in Egypt, Bilibin produced several decorative panels including Worship of the Byzantine Emperor and Empress (1920) and Sts. Boris and Gleb in a Boat (1922). The present lot is most likely a study for the latter panel, on which Bilibin started work in 1921. It is known that Bilibin created several versions of the work; for example, the artist created a copy of the 1922 panel in 1926, a version that belongs to the E. P. Klimov Collection. The image depicts the first native Russian martyr saints (eleventh century), sons of St. Vladimir (who Christianized Rus' in 988). Sts. Boris and Gleb were killed by their brother Sviatopolk amid the latter's quest for political power.

In Sts. Boris and Gleb in a Boat as well as many of his other graphic works, Bilibin made extensive use of motifs from lubki (popular prints), Old Russian illuminated manuscripts, peasant embroideries, and carved and painted wooden utensils. In its fusion of these native folk sources with other influences, among them the graphic work of Aubrey Beardsley, Sts. Boris and Gleb in a Boat typifies the interaction of the Slavic Revival and internationalism in Russian Style Moderne (the Russian version of Art Nouveau) at the turn of the century. Describing his drawings, Bilibin wrote: "The style is Old Russian—derived from traditional art and the old popular print, but ennobled."