Ivan Pavlovich Pokhitonov

Collection of Dr Charles Mathieu, Liège
The Nadin collection, Liège
Private collection, Belgium
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Brussels, Société des Beaux-Arts, Sixième exposition, 1899, no.97, Etude par temps gris
Liège, Cercle des Beaux-Arts et de l'Oeuvre des Artistes, Exposition du peintre russe Ivan Pokitonow, 12 May - 24 May 1906, no.76, Etude par temps gris (La Panne, Belgique)
Possibly Liège, Société Royale des Beaux-Arts, Salon Triennal de 1924, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Parc de la Boverie, 10 May - 29 June 1924, no.55, La plage à la Panne

O.Bertrand, Ivan Pokhitonov, Catalogue Raisonné Volume I, 2015, p.87 illustrated

The panel is sound. Only two of the edges on the reverse are bevelled suggesting it has been cut from a larger panel. There are very minor frame abrasions at the edges. Inspection under UV light reveals no obvious signs of retouching. Held in a gilt and painted wooden frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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It may seem surprising that an artist who was known for his miniature paintings should choose 'to study wide spaces', as his friend Emile Witmeur observed, and yet the expanse of sand and sea at La Panne allowed him to do just that. Pokhitonov started to visit this part of the Belgian coast in the mid-1890s as an escape from the inland landscapes of his home at Jupille, and the series of beach scenes he painted here include some of his most irresistibly attractive works.

We know of a few recorded paintings of the artist at his easel, but nonetheless his self-portraits are rare and this is a particularly satisfying composition. A gentle sense of movement is created through the downward sweep of the sand dunes, the clouds scudding upwards and the sinking sunbeams from the west. A few dots of colour punctate the composition – the artist’s white cap, his blue panel, the red walls of the house beyond – witty flourishes perhaps of an artist who has so self-consciously set himself centre-stage.

The present lot was one of ten paintings Pokhitonov sent for exhibition at the Société des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and was also one of the 80 works in his major retrospective show in Liege in 1906.