IVAN PAVLOVICH POKHITONOV | MARE AND FOAL

Acquired by the great-grandfather of the present owner

This unusually early pair of works (lots 27 and 28), still in their matching period frames, date to the artist’s first days in Paris. Through his friendship with Alexei Bogoliubov, Pokhitonov was connected with the previous generation of the French Barbizon school – a huge influence on his work. One of their central tenets was the realistic depiction of nature through its direct study and plein-air painting. At this time the young artist executed a number of paintings of dogs, cats, cattle, horses and even reindeer, based on sketches he made on study visits to the Paris’s Jardin Zoologique d’Acclimatation, a hugely popular zoo and amusement park full of exotic, and less-exotic plants and animals.