Konstantin Egorovich Makovsky

The artist's granddaughter, Marina Flamant, Paris
Sotheby Parke-Bernet New York, 7 October 1977, lot 136
Phillips New York, 27 October 1983, lot 164
Hammer Galleries, New York

St Petersburg, 10-aya vystavka S.-Peterburgskogo obshchestva khudozhnikov, 1902, no.186

Exhibition catalogue 10-aya vystavka S.-Peterburgskogo obshchestva khudozhnikov, St Petersburg, 1902, p.24, no.186 listed, illustrated in b/w

Original canvas which is slightly slack on the stretcher. The tacking edges are frayed and there are losses to the corners. There are frame abrasions with some associated paint loss along all four edges. There is an indentation with a tiny puncture approximately 15cm below the signature and another indentation in the upper left. There is a tiny hole to the right of the top of the chair. The surface is covered in a layer of dirt. There is a fleck of paint loss in the centre of the hat and scattered flecks of paint loss in places. There is craquelure to the impasto in places. Inspection under UV light reveals an area of retouching where the sitter's left sleeve meets her dress. Held in a gilt wooden frame with plaster mouldings. Unexamined out of frame.
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 Konstantin Makovsky embarked upon a career as a society portrait painter immediately on graduating from the St Petersburg Academy of Arts and it is for his portraits of women in particular that he is celebrated. In 1864, the landscape painter Pavel Dzhogin wrote to Ivan Shishkin, who was then abroad on an Academy sponsored trip, relating the news in St Petersburg: ‘Makovsky is utterly spoilt for portrait commissions, and what clients – all the princes and barons’. The artist remained true to his chosen path until the end. At his 1897 personal exhibition in St Petersburg it was his portraits of women which stole the show. The critics remarked: ‘This abundance of the female form is so great and so conspicuous, that all his other paintings, regardless of their large size, recede into the background and in the foreground remains that which Goethe so aptly named ‘Das Ewig-Weibliche’, or the ‘Eternal feminine’.

Makovsky’s ability to flatter his models, whilst still achieving a likeness, is what impressed his high-ranking clients and his undoubted artistic talent, his knack for a striking composition and the ‘tasteful’ manner in which he painted fabrics and jewellery was highly valued by connoisseurs.

This portrait of Marina Ionina was shown at the 10^th Exhibition of the St Petersburg Society of Artists in 1902 and is reproduced in the catalogue. It is painted with the artist’s characteristic finesse and expressivity. The lace trim of her dress, fur stole, rippling silks and pearl necklace are all painted with consummate skill, and are what make this portrait such a fine example of Makovsky’s work in this genre.

The name of Marina Pavlovna Ionina is found in the well-known address book All St Petersburg. In the 1900 edition she is listed as ‘the wife’ and in the 1901 as ‘the widow’ of the Active Privy Councillor A.S.Ionin. The sitter’s black crepe hat is most likely a symbol of her recent mourning.

We are grateful to Dr Elena Nesterova for providing this catalogue note.