Sergei Arsenievich Vinogradov

Acquired by the father of the present owner at auction in 1979

Original canvas. There is a dent in the canvas to the right of the second post from the left.There are frame abrasions to the edges with some minor associated losses. There is craquelure throughout, some of which is lifting but currently stable, notably in the sea, the white of the tablecloth and the sitter's dress. The canvas weave is showing through the thinner layers of paint along the top edge, this appears to be inherent to the artist's technique. There is a layer of surface dirt and fly spots in places. Inspection under UV light does not reveal any obvious signs of retouching. Held in a gold painted wooden frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Sergei Vinogradov spent much of the First World War in Crimea. He visited Alupka in 1915 and returned the two following summers both to Alupka and Gurzuf, where he stayed at Konstantin Korovin’s dacha. At the time Vinogradov was courting two young women but it was Irina Kazimirovna Voitsekhovskaya, a former student of his from his teaching days at the Stroganov Academy in Moscow, who was his most frequent companion and who most commonly appears in the series In the South painted between 1915 and 1917.

In this series Irina is often depicted by an open window or on a terrace and, almost always wearing a white dress and hat which stand out against the deep azure of the sea and sky. Even though the sitter’s face is turned away from the viewer it is the distinctive white hat that allows us to assume that Irina is the subject of the present lot. Painted just a few short months before the Revolution and the closing-in of the Eastern Front on Crimea, this portrait captures a moment in the final carefree summer the couple spent together before marrying in 1918.

Vinogradov exhibited many of the works he painted that summer at the 15th Exhibition of the Union of Russian Artists in Moscow in December 1917. It is very likely that the present lot was one of the twelve paintings of Crimea.