FISHERMAN signed with initials l.l. and dated 19th March 1902 pencil on paper 23 by 16cm., 6 by 9 in.

ITEM #SEROA1
$3,000

 Portrait of an old general, signed with initials low right, pencil on paper 69 x 50 cm - 27 x 19 inches

Portrait of a young man (possibly a self-portrait), oil on canvas, circa 1880, 12x15” Provenance: Rosebery’s Auction, London, October 11, 2005, lot 607. ; exhibited: “A Time to Gather… Russian Art From Foreign Private collections”, State Russian Museum, Saint-Petersburg, February-June 2008, Moscow - Exhibition Center "Tsaritsyno", June-July 2008, Palace Editions,2008, illustrated in the catalog p. 88 ill 44 Label on the back: “50. Серов B.A. П-т мододого человека X.M.  38х32”

[“When the creative oeuvre of the celebrated Russian artists is concerned and Valentin Serov is, undoubtedly, one of the best artists of the 19th-20th centuries, then the main criteria used to establish the authorship of a picture is evaluation of the level of artistic craftsmanship as regards both, their mature and early works.

The given unfinished picture painted at the age of 15, already has the distinctive features of the would be famous in future “Serov’s portrait”. Simple composition, precise paintwork and delicate chiaroscuro modeling of the face as well as the emotional resonance of background create a convincing image of a concentrated, pensive young man. The representation has certain features of the artist’s self-portrait. The work was painted at a very important period of the artist’s life when he tried to sum up the knowledge he had gained from his teacher Ilya Repin, who prepared him for the studies at the Imperial Academy of Arts. His new teacher, Pavel Chistyakov genuinely admired Serov’s talent, and found the painterly language of the gifted young man developed “to the utmost””]  

Portrait of a sitting young girl in a pink dress (Granddaughter of P. Tretiakov, daughter of A.P. Botkina, niece of L. Bakst, later on - a well known soviet movie star Alexandra Sergeevna Hohlova (born 1891), spouse of the director L. Kuleshov- compare with her 1911 photo in R. Buckle “Nijinsky”, Simon and Shuster, NY, 1971p. 206 where she is photographed with Tamara Karsavina, Nijinsky, Diaghilev, Benois, and Stravinsky; Alexandra Hohlova has her portraits executed by F. MALIAVINE and A. Lentulov (1919) a s well ), [1900], oil on canvas, 28 x 20" c.1899. Exhibited: “Mir Iskusstva”, 1901, Petersburg-Moscow;  “Faces of Russia”, February 2007, West Palm Beach International Art Fair, USA (illustrated on page 28 of the catalog). ; exhibited: “A Time to Gather… Russian Art From Foreign Private collections”, State Russian Museum, Saint-Petersburg, February-June 2008, Moscow - Exhibition Center "Tsaritsyno", June-July 2008, Palace Editions,2008, illustrated in the catalog p. 88 ill 45) 

[“In 1890s Valentin Serov revealed his talent as a portraitist. The main feature of his oeuvre was truthful psychological treatment of his models. Having mastered all the modern painterly media, he and his close associate painter Konstantin Korovin, strove to achieve virtuosity of each brush-stroke. All this enabled him to achieve peculiar spirituality of image, particularly felt in his portraits of children and young people. In the portrait of a sitting young girl the artist, presumably, depicted Alexandra Sergeyevna Botkina, daughter of a famous St. Petersburg doctor and collector Sergei Botkin. Serov was on friendly terms with the Botkins and painted and draw the members of the family many times.  It is a well known fact that the painter made sketches very quickly, but he was very scrupulous when painting portraits, they took him much time. The delicate harmony of soft colors combined with the expressive rendering of the young woman’s glance lend the portrait an especially lyrical mood.”]

 Provenance: Phillips Bayswater, 02.10.01, lot 75.  Initial study for this portrait is in State Russian Museum, Petersburg - see illustration in "Serov" by D. Sarabianov, Art-Rodnik, Moscow, 2000, p.9. Serov is mentioning that portrait in his letters to A.P. Botkina twice – first 12.2.1900 promising “to grill your girl the day after tomorrow i.e. on Monday” and second 5.1.1901 in connection with the opening of “Mir Iskusstva” Exhibition [ Valentine Serov in Letters, Documents and Memoirs, Hudojnik RSFSR, Leningrad, 1985, v.1 pp 278, 316]. At the same time period Paolo Troubetzkoy also created a sculptural portrait of the girl (together with her mother) – see TROUBETZKOY Paolo 1866-1938. Il Quadrante Edizioni. Text by G. Piantoni, P. Venturoli. Verbania Pallanza 29.4-29.7. 1990. Torino, p148 ill 87.  Compare also with the portrait of her mother, sitting at the sofa with same accessories, painted the same year – catalog of paintings, State Russian Museum, 1980, #5411, illustrated.. In original last quarter of 18th Century Italian (Emilia?)Louis Philippe style carved and gilded frame, octagonal, lion feet, cresting with putty head, acorn at the volute  and flower festoons to the sides, with a canvas inner slip (provenance for the frame: Dorotheum Rahmen. Wien 10.04.2003, lot 414 - compare also LODI Roberto La Collezzione Di Cornici Catalog N4,  Modena 1996, N47

Youth and education

Serov was born in St. Petersburg, son of the Russian composer Alexander Serov, and his wife Valentina Bergman, a composer of German-Jewish and English background. In his childhood he studied in Paris and Moscow under Ilya Repin and in the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (1880–1885) under Pavel Chistyakov. Serov's early creativity was sparked by the realistic art of Repin and strict pedagogical system of Chistyakov. Further influences on Serov were the old master paintings he viewed in the museums of Russia and Western Europe, friendships with Mikhail Vrubel and (later) Konstantin Korovin, and the creative atmosphere of the Abramtsevo Colony, to which he was closely connected.

Early works

The greatest works of Serov's early period were portraits: The Girl with Peaches (1887), and The Girl Covered by the Sun (1888), both in the Tretyakov Gallery. In these paintings Serov concentrated on spontaneity of perception of the model and nature. In the development of light and color, the complex harmony of reflections, the sense of atmospheric saturation, and the fresh picturesque perception of the world, there appeared the features of early Russian impressionism.

Portraiture and success

From 1890 on, the portrait became the basic genre in Serov's art. It was in this field that his early style would become apparent, the paintings notable for the psychologically pointed characteristics of his subjects. Serov's favorite models were actors, artists, and writers (Konstantin Korovin, 1891, Isaac Levitan, 1893, Nikolai Leskov, 1894, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, 1898, - all in the Tretyakov gallery).

Initially abstaining from the polychromatic, brightly colored painting style of the 1880s, Serov often preferred a dominant scale of black-grey or brown tones. Impressionistic features appeared sometimes in composite construction of a portrait, or to capture a sense of spontaneous movement. As in the work of his contemporaries John Singer Sargent and Anders Zorn, the impressionism is not doctrinaire, but derives as much from the study of Hals and Velázquez as from modern theory. Receiving wide popularity, in 1894 Serov joined with the Peredvizhniki (The Itinerants), and took on important commissions, among them portraits of grand duke Pavel Alexandrovich, (1897, Tretyakov Gallery), S.M. Botkin, 1899, and F.F. Yusupova, 1903 (both in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg). In these truthful, compositionally skillful, and picturesque executions in the grand manner, Serov consistently used linear-rhythmic drawing coupled with decorative color combinations.

At the same time, he developed a contrasting direction: he frequently produced intimate, heartfelt, chamber portraits, mainly of children and women. In portraits of children Serov aspired to capture pose and gesture, to reveal and emphasize a spontaneity of internal movement, sincere cleanliness and clearness of attitude of the child (Children, 1899, Russian Museum; Mika Morozov, 1901, Tretyakov gallery). Serov frequently called upon various graphic techniques - watercolors, pastels, lithographs and so forth. Figures in Serov's portraits gradually became more and more graphically refined and economical, particularly during the late period (Vasily Kachalov, 1908, Tamara Karsavina, 1909; numerous figures from Ivan Krylov's fables, 1895–1911). From 1890 to 1900 Serov produced many landscape compositions on country themes, in which the artistic direction took a romantic turn.

Late work

During his late period, which began in 1900, Serov was a member of "The World of art", an influential Russian art association and magazine which grew, in part, out of dissatisfaction with the Itinerants movement. At the turn of the century, Serov was at a stylistic turning point: features of impressionism disappeared from his work, and his modernistic style developed, but the characteristic truthful and realistic comprehension of the nature of his subjects remained constant. In the early 1900s Serov created heroic portrait images; within the genre of the fashionable portrait, Serov focused on the dramatic depiction of creative artists, writers, actors, and musicians of import: Maxim Gorki's portraits (1904), A.M. Gorki's museum, Moscow; Maria Yermolova (1905), Feodor Chaliapin (charcoal, 1905) - both in the Tretyakov Gallery.

Serov's democratic beliefs were clearly shown during the Revolution from 1905 to 1907: he depicted a number of satirical figures exposing chastisers. A full member of the St.Petersburg Academy of Arts since 1903, in 1905 he resigned as a gesture of protest against the execution of striking workers and their families on January 9, Bloody Sunday. His late creativity found expression in historical painting (Peter II departure and Empress Elizabeth Petrovna on hunting, 1900, Russian Museum), and depth of comprehension of the historical maintenance of an epoch (Peter I, distemper, 1907, Tretyakov Gallery).

The last years of Serov's life were marked by works on themes from classical mythology. While addressing images from the ancient tradition, Serov endowed classical subject matter with a personal interpretation.

Valentin Serov died in Moscow on December 5, 1911. He is buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

Legacy

The best works of Serov are among the greatest of Russian realistic art. He taught in the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture from 1897 to 1909), and among his students were Pavel Kuznetsov, N.N. Sapunov, Martiros Saryan, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, N.P. Ulyanov, and Konstantin Yuon.