Ivan Pavlovich Pokhitonov

Collection of Professor Emile Witmeur, Liège
Private collection, Belgium
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Liège, Cercle des Beaux-Arts, Exposition Iwan Pokitonow, 20 May - 8 June 1922, no.35
Centenaire de la Société Royale des Beaux-Arts de Liège, 1933
Liège, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Parc de la Boverie, Le Visage de Liège, 23 September - 23 October 1933, no.384, Jardin à Jupille
Liège, 3 Rue Sœurs-de-Hasque, Peinture Salon inaugural du nouveau local du Cercle des Beaux-Arts de Liège, 10 - 27 December 1938, no.40, Coin de Jupille

E.Witmeur, 'Un peintre russe, chantre de la Wallonie. Catalogue des oeuvres d’Ivan Pavlovitch Pokhitonov se rapportant au pays wallon', La Vie Wallonne, Liège, 15 March 1924, XLV, 9, p.370

The panel is sound. There is some light wear to the edges and corners. There is a shallow split of a few millimetres to the top layer of the panel at the centre of the bottom edge. There is a small indentation in the paint surface to the grey roof at the centre of the left edge. There are areas of fine craquelure, mostly restricted to the sky. Examination under UV light reveals retouching to each of the corners of the panel. Held in an attractive gilt frame with plaster mouldings. Unexamined out of frame.
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In his praise of Pokhitonov’s ‘miniature pearls’, it is telling that Ilya Repin picked out first and foremost the artist’s eye for architecture: ‘What brio and freshness, what discipline in the drawing and tone throughout the paintings, especially the buildings. Verging on total illusion’ (quoted in V.Petrov, Ivan Pokhitonov, 2003, p.22-23). The modest subject and muted light of the present view of hens and blossoming trees in a rural courtyard is combined here with a characteristic interest in the complex planes of walls and rooftops.

The present lot will be included in the third volume of the catalogue raisonné currently being prepared by Olivier Bertrand.