Lot 15: BOGOLIUBOV, ALEXEI Years: 1824-1896 Amsterdam by

BOGOLIUBOV, ALEXEI Years: 1824-1896 Amsterdam by Moonlightsigned and inscribed in Cyrillic "Amsterdam", also further inscribed and numbered "264/N338" and "A.D.M. 26117" on the labels on the original frame and the stretcher Oil on canvas, 32 by 50 cm.
This work hung in Emperor Alexander's dining room.

Provenance: Former collection of Emperor Alexander III, Anichkovskiy Palace, No. 264/338.
Thence in 1931 to joint stock company "Otel".
Private collection, Argentina.

Authenticity has been confirmed by Vladimir Petrov.

Views of Holland occupy a special place in Bogoliubov's creativeoeuvre. On graduating from the Naval Cadets in 1841, Bogoliuboventered the navy as a warrant officer, and spent a great deal of timeat sea. During one of his first long voyages, he spent time inAmsterdam, Haarlem and Rotterdam, where he became familiarwith the works of the "old masters" and of contemporary Europeanpainters. This was followed by years of study in the Academy includinga fateful (from a creative point of view) meeting with KarlBrulov, conversations with Aleksandr Ivanov in Rome and Paris, along period spent working under French and German masters, afriendship with Corot and Daubigny, high profile commissions, closeco-operation with Kramskoy and the Wanderers, a move to France,portrayal of the history of the Russian navy, and finally, the organisationof Russia's first museum open to the general public, whichwas named in memory of his grandfather Radishchev, a greatthinker and publicist during the time of Catherine the Great. Andall of this was merely a background to his unending, fevered landscapework- at sea and on the River Volga, in St. Petersburg, inTurkey, in Normandy and in the Crimea, in Italy and in Holland.

In 1859 after completing his Grand Tour of Europe which,along with the grand medal, was his graduation reward fromthe Academy of Arts, Bogoliubov travelled to Dusseldorf to beginwork under the direction of the renowned painter AndreasAchenbach. Achenbach recommended that Bogoliubov shouldforget his previous work and be guided only by his own personalview of nature, and without further ado he sent him off tostudy in Scheveningen, a small seaside resort near the Hague. Itwas from this trip to Holland that Bogoliubov returned homewith his first masterpieces.

The Academy of Arts awarded the title of Professor toBogoliubov and its Council declared its gratitude, as, the resolutionof the Council stated, "up to now none of the graduates ofthe Academy who have taken the Grand Tour have returnedwith such a large quantity of excellent studies and paintingswhich display, in addition to talent, particular endeavour and astriving for perfection".
Bogoliubov recorded his impressions of these travels in richdetail in a large number of varied sketches which were usuallyexecuted on special small panels. In these works he strived toachieve universality of form and communicated his ownthoughts and feelings through his images of nature, achieving ahigh degree of expression on very small canvases. This gives hislively nature sketches the quality of studies for paintings. Theseopen air landscapes, the painting style resembling at times eitherthe Barbizon or the impressionist technique, are very direct andbear the stamp of Bogoliubov's individual painting style. Thelandscape Amsterdam by Moonlight which is presented for auction isone such small, yet lively and extremely characteristic work byBogoliubov which was executed in a picturesque corner ofHolland.

Bogoliubov's masterpieces from this period include a series ofworks executed in Holland - an autumnal Scheveningen landscapepainted in a restrained palette of silver hues, View of theEnvirons of The Hague, and a number of views of Amsterdamwhich are now held in various museums in Russia: City on a river.Amsterdam (1870, held in the Rybinsky Museum of History,Architecture and the Arts) and Amsterdam (1885, held at theSaratov Radishchev State Museum of Arts).