Vasily Vasilievich Rozhdestvensky

Acquired in Berlin in the early 1920s by Alexander Konstantinovsky (1880-1938)
Thence by descent to his grandson

Structural Condition The canvas is unlined and is securely attached to a keyed wooden stretcher. This is ensuring a stable structural support. There are small deposits of what appears to be black paint and gesso on the reverse of the canvas. There is a small patched repair to left of the centre of the right vertical stretcher member as viewed from the reverse. This appears stable. The tacking and turnover edges are covered with brown paper gum tape. Paint Surface The paint surface has a relatively even varnish layer. There is a very small paint loss within an area of blue paint in the upper left quadrant of the composition. There is a slightly raised stretcher-bar line corresponding to the upper horizontal stretcher member. This appears stable. There are also very small scattered localised areas of fine lines of craquelure which are slightly raised in places. These also appear stable. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows a slightly discoloured varnish layer. Inspection under ultra-violet light also shows retouchings running along the extreme edges of the composition, a small retouching towards the centre of the left edge corresponding to the patched repair visible on the reverse, and two small spots of retouching within the lower centre of the composition. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in very good and stable condition.
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From a wealthy mining family, Alexander Konstantinovsky (1880-1938) became a leading financier in Russia where he built up a collection of Old Master paintings. He emigrated after the 1905 Revolution leaving behind much of his property, but once settled in Vienna and later Berlin he turned again to art collecting and began to acquire works by contemporary Russian artists. Other paintings from Konstantinovsky’s collection offered in these rooms include Konstantin Korovin’s Portrait of a Seated Lady and Still Life with Fruit and Roses, and Petr Konchalovsky’s Autumn Road.

Of all the members of the renowned Knave of Diamonds group, Vasily Rozhdestvensky was perhaps the least declamatory and most elusive; the only ‘knave’ who was sent to the front during the war, Rozhdestvensky was the most serious of the group and together with Robert Falk and Alexander Kuprin, he represents the most enduring branch of the Russian Cézannist school. Whereas the older members of the group – Konchalovsky, Lentulov and Mashkov – diverged from French practices by attaching a comparatively minor role to landscape painting, preferring portraiture and still lifes as their calling cards, for Rozhdestvensky landscape painting played an increasingly important role. With the majority of his work held in museum collections, the appearance at auction of two Russian landscapes from the Konstantinovsky collection (lots 46 and 47) is a rare opportunity for collectors of this period.