Lot 226: Konstantin Apollonovich Savitsky, 1844-1905 , study for Funeral Service on the Ninth Day at the Cemetery oil on board

signed in Cyrillic l.l. and dated 1885 oil on board

25 by 40.5cm., 9¾ by 16in.

Konstantin Savitsky grew up in Taganrog on the coast of the Azov Sea and was a promising pupil at the Imperial Academy of Arts, which awarded him a gold medal for his painting Cain and Abel (1871). He became a member of the Society for Wandering Art Exhibitions, or Peredvizhniki and his painting Repairing the Railway was among the earliest to depict the life of the working classes. One of his most famous works is Morning in a Pine Forest, which he painted with Ivan Shishkin.

The present composition is a preparatory study for Funeral Service on the Ninth Day at the Cemetery from 1885, which hangs in the State Tretyakov Gallery.