KARL PAVLOVICH BRIULLOV | A COLLECTION OF 52 DRAWINGS AND SKETCHES, SOME OF WHICH DOUBLE-SIDED

Acquired directly from the artist

Thence by descent

I.Bocharov and Yu.Gluzhkova, Karl Briullov. Ital'yanskie nakhodki, Moscow: Znanie, 1984

Exhibition catalogue Proizvedeniya russkikh khudozhnikov iz muzeev i chastnikh kollektsii Italii, Venice: Marsilio, 1991

T.Sacchi Lodispoto, Karl Brullov (1799-1852). Disegni e bozzetti, Rome: Galleria Berardi, 2014

From the earliest years of his artistic education Karl Briullov never ceased to practise his drawing, maintaining the dexterity of his eye, hand and mind. According to Grigory Goldovsky, there are twenty-five known albums of his studies and sketches. As records of the artist’s creative and imaginative process, these albums constitute an important element of Briullov’s artistic legacy.

After fifteen intensive years of painting and teaching in St Petersburg, Briullov’s health took a turn for the worse. On his doctor’s advice, the artist left Russia for Madeira in 1849 and eventually settled in Rome, where he had spent the early years of his career. There he met Angelo Tittoni, an associate of Garibaldi, in whose house he practically lived for the last years of his life. Most of the artist’s later drawings, portraits, and watercolours remained in the collection of the Tittoni family.

The present group of drawings contains works from his early Italian period as well as the last two years of his life spent with Tittoni family in Rome. Many of these drawings are studies for well-known compositions, such as Portrait of Anatoly Demidov (1831, Palazzo Pitti, Florence), Genseric Sacking Rome (1835-36, The State Tretyakov Gallery), Eclipse of the Sun. Diana's Farewell to Apollo (1851-52, The National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus) and Girl in a Forest (1850-52, Tittoni Family Collection) amongst others.