- 24
Nadezhda Vladimirovna Lermontova
Description
- Nadezhda Vladimirovna Lermontova
- Sphinx, circa 1910s
- oil on canvas
- 41 3/4 by 48 3/4 in., 106 by 124 cm
Provenance
Exhibited
Literature
Condition
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."
Catalogue Note
During her tragically short career, Nadezhda Lermontova created some of the most complex and revolutionary Symbolist imagery of her time. She was a prominent member of the Union of the Youth and studied under Leon Bakst, working on various projects from theatrical designs to murals in addition to traditional easel painting. Impressively, she worked alongside Russian masters Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin and Nikolai Tyrsa and exhibited frequently with the Mir Isskustva group, all the while developing her own courageous aesthetic in her depictions of allegorical and mythological subjects. As a consequence of her untimely death and the mass destruction of her artwork during the siege of Leningrad in 1941, Lermontova's paintings are incredibly scarce, and thus the sale of Sphinx, once preserved in the renowned collection of Solomon Shuster, marks an extraordinary opportunity for collectors of historic paintings of the early twentieth century.
Sphinx was executed in the late 1910s, a period widely considered to be the strongest and most nuanced of Lermontova's career. This mystical beast may have been a popular subject among Symbolist artists including Fernand Khnopff and Odilon Redon, but Lermontova departs from expectations by rendering an original, entrancing figure whose anatomy is recognizably human. The female creature's patterned scarf merely evokes the presence of large wings, while her distorted arms and legs highlight the artist's radical interest in the grotesque.