Zinaida Evgenievna Serebriakova

Mathias, Le Roux-Morel, Baron Ribeyre & Associée, Paris Drouot, 31 November 2005, lot 52

Cannes, Centre d'Art La Malmaison, 60 Chefs-d'œuvre de l'école russe. Le nu en peinture 1900/1970, 23 October 2010 - 30 January 2011 

Exhibition catalogue 60 Chefs-d'œuvre de l'école russe. Le nu en peinture 1900/1970, 2010, p.95 illustrated

The paper support has discoloured, particularly along the edges, and there is some surface dirt and smudging in places. There are several pin holes around the edges. There are remains of adhesive tape on the reverse along the left and bottom edges. The reverse also shows the remains of a pastel sketch. Held in wooden frame behind glass. Unexamined out of frame.
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This superb nude portrait dates from Zinaida Serebriakova’s first trip to Morocco, funded by the Belgian industrialist, the Baron de Brouwer, who had discovered her work at the 1928 International Exhibition in Brussels. The same year he would commission her to paint portraits of his family. Inspired by Morocco’s landscapes and people, it was here that Serebriakova created some of her most exotic and intriguing works. Despite the fact that Brouwer had specifically commissioned her to paint nudes during this trip however, Serebriakova struggled to find women who would pose for her and as a result her nude studies from this trip are relatively rare.

In the present work, Serebriakova succeeded in capturing the local colours without falling into the trap of European Orientalism that focuses solely on the ‘otherness’ of the model and objectifies the sitter with a disregard for personality.  ‘The people are so full of life’, Alexander Benois wrote of her Moroccan works, ‘it seems as if you truly enter into direct contact with them, as if you actually meet them in person.’ (Alexander Benois, Khudozhestvennye pis’ma 1930-1936, Moscow, 1997, p.130).

We are grateful to Pavel Pavlinov and Ekaterina Lanceray for providing additional cataloguing information.