A Church Interior. Tempera on board. Signed with initials B.K. and dated 1910 lower left, signed and dated one more time on the reverse. 26 x 20” Provenance: deacquisition from Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio. With illegible custom stamp “#10” on the reverse. Original hand carved and gilded (three colors of gold - white, yellow and green) American Stanford White style frame, end of XIX century. Compare lot 22 sold at MacDougall Russian Art Auctions, London, Wednesday, November 27, 2013 for 750000 GBP
Décor for prologue in “Snow Maiden”. Watercolor and pencil on paper, laid on cardboard, signed and dated 1918, inscribed in Russian “Snegourotchka” low right. 9x12in. Executed for Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, and described in details in KUSTODIEV Boris Mikhailovitch. Text by V. Lebedeva. Nauka, Moscow, 1966, p.70 (“First variant. Fluffy snow frame from branches, stems and crones. In that frame- Berendeevka covered by snow, on the green sky – the sun in a freezing crown…”) Exhibited: “A World of Stage”, April- October2007, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Japan (illustrated in the catalog). Provenance: Aguttes, Paris, 2 April 2010, lot 62
BORIS KUSTODIEV (Design). Five hand painted porcelain plates by Kornilov factory, signed BK and dated 1916 on reverse with caricatures on Rasputin, Nicolas II and Alexandra Feodorovna. D=10". Three of the plates (images in the left column) evidently have been produced when Rasputin was alive, two others are reflecting period when he was already murdered (Dec 1916).
[A mystic, Rasputin had strange healing powers. When no one else could help Alexei's bleeding disorder, Rasputin made the bleeding stop. When the family thought Alexei would die, Rasputin helped him get well. Alexandra, obsessed with guilt for passing the dreaded disease to her son, began to depend on Rasputin for everything. Despite his slovenly appearance and habits, Rasputin had total access to the royal family. This shocked even the aristocracy. Contemporary newspapers contained caricatures depicting Rasputin's hold over Nicholas and Alexandra. Rasputin had made an eerie prediction before he died. “If I am killed by common assassins and especially by my brothers the Russian peasants, you, Tsar of Russia, have nothing to fear for your children, they will reign for hundreds of years in Russia....if it was your relations who have wrought my death, then no one in your family, that is to say, none of your children or relations will remain alive for two years. They will be killed by the Russian people...I shall be killed. I am no longer among the living. . Pray, pray, be strong, think of your blessed family.”]
Enclosed: “Rasputin in death”, watercolor on ivory, a contemporary study, 3.5x4 inches (left image above - compare with original photo to the right)
Four drawings from a scrapbook [1914] (2 - Russian nudes, 1 - eastern nude (compare lot 206, Sotheby’s London 19-Feb-1998), 1 - praying Muslim). Pencil, ink, watercolor. Signed lower left, 9 x 7" each. In two hand carved, polychrome and gilded wood frames with ormolu mounts designed and produced by S.P. Solomons Decorative Art Company, Brooklyn NY, numbered 1459 on the back, circa 1910
