llya Efimovich Repin

J.Datsiaro, Moscow

On lined canvas. Craquelure is visible throughout and the surface is dirty with ingrained dirt to the impasto. UV light reveals a layer of opaque fluorescing varnish as well as retouches in certain areas including over sitter's left shoulder, to his hat and lapels as well as around the outer edges of the composition. Held in a wooden frame and unexamined out of frame.
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During his stay in Paris from 1873-1876, Repin worked on various smaller paintings to ensure he did not bore of his major projects, in particular  Sadko, with which he was becoming increasingly disillusioned and was struggling to complete.

This sensitively rendered portrait relates closely to Jew at Prayer, which is considered amongst the finest canvases that Repin executed in Paris and which Pavel Tretyakov purchased purely based on the enthusiastic recommendation of Alexei Bogoliubov.

Chiaroscuro is used to great effect in highlighting the textured features of the sitter's face and the texture of his velvet hat, and in the offered work it is possible to detect the influence of Rembrandt, whose talent for depicting thoughtful introspection in his subjects was, according to Igor Grabar, an enduring influence on Repin's portraiture.

 

Repin would have initially signed his canvas in Latin script on its completion in Paris, signing it once more in Cyrillic on his return to Russia.