DMITRI SEMENOVICH STELLETSKY | L'ARMÉE AU BORD DE LA MER FROM THE TALE OF IGOR'S CAMPAIGN

Exhibition catalogue Exposition d'Art russe ancien et moderne, Brussels, 1928, p.81, no.900 listed

Best known in the West through Alexander Borodin’s opera Prince Igor, the Tale of Igor’s Campaign is a 12^th century epic poem or song and the oldest known work of secular Russian literature. It celebrates the story of the bold but ill-fated Prince Igor who led his army into battle against the Polovtsy – the pagan people of the steppe and traditional foe of Ancient Kievan Rus’. Prince Igor ignored the bad omen of the solar eclipse and led his soldiers into battle against the far larger Polovtsian army.

Stelletsky created two sets of illustrations of the Tale, the first in Russia, the second in Paris after emigrating and it was this second set of nearly 60 gouaches that were exhibited in Brussels in 1928. In the present lot we see Prince Igor, his brother Prince Vsevolod, nephew Prince Svetoslav and son Prince Vladimir at the head of the army by the Black Sea preparing to go into battle under a blackened sun.