Alexei Petrovich Bogoliubov

Off Dutch coast sailing boat: Original canvas. The picture has recently been cleaned. There are some faint stretcher marks and a spot of impact craquelure to the right of the sail. There are further fine lines of craquelure elsewhere. There is some light abrasion to the paint surface in the corners and along the edges. UV light reveals some scattered retouchings in places. There is a horizontal line of retouching to the main sail. Sailing Boat off the Neapolitan Coast Original canvas. The canvas has recently been cleaned. There are faint stretcher marks and further lines of craquelure in places throughout. UV light reveals some very minor spots of retouching to the left of the sail. Held in matching gold painted plaster frames with some losses.
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In his diary, Bogoliubov describes spending the winter of 1842 – 1843 in Kronstadt. 'Living every day by the sea, surrounded by the fleet, naturally I turned my talent to boats, to the outfitting, the model and appearance.' The present works are beautiful examples of his professional appraisal of the sails and rigging of these two vessels, the larger Dutch ship in particular. But as he goes on to say, 'That kind of thing isn't bread and butter though. Kuzin was asking for jolly little landscapes, or as he would call them, 'pendants', or pairs of paintings. On one canvas the right bank for example, and the left bank on the other and so on.' The present canvases may also have originally been conceived or commissioned as a pair.

The contrast between the warm, southern light of the Gulf of Naples and the cooler atmosphere of the Dutch port is slight, but palpable. In both the white caps of the women catch the viewer's eye, a characteristic feature of Bogoliubov's coastal views.  He visited Holland several times, notably in 1870 with Tsesarevich Alexandr Alexandrovich (later Alexander III), who was captivated by the museums in The Hague and Amsterdam which they visited together. The windmills and tricolore flags in the present work can be found in 1885 sketches and oil paintings of the Dutch capital in the collection of The Radischev Museum, Saratov.