Attributed to Konstantin Alexeevich Korovin

Sotheby's London, Russian Pictures, Works of Art and Fabergé, 13 February 1986, lot 145

The canvas has been lined and the original tacking edges are missing. There is a layer of surface dirt. The paint surface is thin and there are abrasions throughout. There are creases with associated paint loss in places. There is fine craquelure throughout. Inspection under UV light reveals retouching to the sky and the sea, to the figures in the lower right, to the castle in the background as well as scattered retouching in other places. Held in a modern wooden frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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Korovin first set designs for Rimsky-Korsakov’s Le Coq d’Or date from the 1909 production at the Bolshoi in Moscow. The production was revived at the Bolshoi in 1917, but the original sets had been destroyed in the theatre’s storage at the famous fire of 1914. Although there are few surviving records relating to this revival of the opera at the time of the Revolution, it is possible that Korovin recreated a number of the set designs on the basis of his originals. It is also the case that Korovin would sometimes continue to work on certain designs even after the premier of a production and other set designs by Korovin exist for which the dating does not correspond to a specific production (see Ekaterina Churakova, ‘Konstantin Korovin i ego masterskaya v Bol’shom teatre’, Tretyakov Gallery Magazine, no.1, 2012).

Korovin’s workshop at the Bolshoi employed many talented artists in their own right, whose independent contributions Korovin encouraged. According to posters and programmes, Korovin designed sets and costumes for 60 productions at the Bolshoi and the vast number of sketches which survive are unlikely to have been drawn by Korovin alone. Yet the complexity of the underdrawing in the present work, together with the clearly visible changes, the quality of the execution and characteristic sense of line suggests that this highly decorative canvas stands at the very beginning of the design process, and may well have been painted by Korovin himself. Korovin would later produce designs for productions of Le Coq d’Or in Turin (1924) and in Vichy (1934).