Lot 149: Vladimir Lukich Borovikovsky, 1757-1825 , portrait of Praskovya Mikhailovna Bestuzheva oil on canvas

oil on canvas

69.5 by 56.5cm., 27¼ by 22¼in.

Paris, Salle Pleyel, Exposition Pouchkine organisée par Serge Lifar , 1937

Ogonek, 1967, No.3
T.V.Alexeeva Borovikovsky i Russkaya kultura na rubezhe 18go -19go veka, Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1975, pp. 246-253, ill. plate 151Khudozhnik-Dekabrist Nikolai Bestuzhev,Parizhkie nakhodki: epokha Pushkina,

Alexander and Praskovya Bestuzhev, St. Petersburg until early 1800s
A.A. and V.E. Popov, Paris

Vladimir Borovikovsky ranks amongst Russia's greatest portraitists. The son of a Ukrainian icon-painter, his artistic talent was brought to the attention of the Imperial family by Vasily Vasilevich Kapnist (1758-1823), who commissioned two allegorical paintings to decorate a room where Catherine II would stay on her journey to the Crimea. Allegedly, Catherine was so pleased with these pictures of herself and Peter the Great, she requested that Borovikovsky move to St Petersburg. Once in the capital he studied under the leading Court painters, Dmitry Levitsky (1735-1822) and Johann Lampi (1751-1830), before setting up his own studio where he taught Alexei Venetsianov (1780-1847) and produced over 500 portraits. Through his mastery of technique and unparalleled compositional skill, he introduced a new level of sensitivity and feeling to society portraiture and is considered responsible for raising it to the level of an independent genre. Borovikovsky's female portraits are generally acknowledged to be his most accomplished and this graceful depiction of Praskovya Mikhailovna Bestuzheva (1775-1846) is no exception. Borovikovsky painted it as a pendant to his 1806 portrait of her husband, Alexander Fedoseevich Bestuzhev (1761-1810) which has hung in the Kirov Oblast' museum since 1925 (fig.2). Bestuzhev, an artillery officer, had a keen interest in the arts, and for a while occupied the post of conference secretary of the Academy of Arts under Stroganov. Celebrities from the worlds of both the arts and sciences regularly frequented the Bestuzhev's home, including Borovikovsky. An enlightened thinker, Bestuzhev disagreed with the reactionary rule of Paul I; it is no coincidence that four of his sons took part in the infamous Decembrist revolt of 1825. The offered portrait is a rediscovered masterpiece, documented for the first time in 1967 by I. Zilbershtein. It is mentioned in a letter written by Bestuzheva's son, Nikolai on 8 January 1847, who recalls that the portrait of his mother was completed when she was just over 30, allowing us to confirm the date of the work as 1806 also (Pushkin Archive, No. 604, doc. 9, p. 257). Borovikovsky applies his characteristically limited palette to suggest the texture of clothing and with carefully modulated shadows describes the fall of light across flesh. The elegance of her dress gently asserts the status of the sitter but her face expresses a touching degree of modesty and sincerity; she adopts a classical pose, but with a natural air and degree of lenteur which absolves it of all formality. In her monograph, Tatyana Alexeeva juxtaposes Bestuzheva's portrait with an 1805 painting of Madame Rivière painted by another luminary of nineteenth century European portraiture, Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) (fig.2). While both clearly conform to the traditions of Classicism in terms of composition and treatment, the mood of Ingres' portrait is markedly more informal and alluring. Borovikovsky chooses to underline the energy and psychological essence of his sitter, rejecting the artificial stiffness of earlier society portraiture and the addition of this remarkable portrait to Borovikovky's body of work has significantly enriched the artistic legacy of this brilliant artist.