American and European Art

We would like to thank Galina Tuluzakova for her assistance with the cataloguing of this lot.

Provenance:

Saks Galleries, Denver, Colorado

Acquired directly from the above by Homer E. Noble, March 29, 1978

Thence by descent to the present owner

Literature:

Galina Tuluzakova, Nikolai Fechin, St. Petersburg, Russia, 2007 (reprints 2010, 2012, 2015, 2018), p. 14, illus.

Lot note:

In 1907, the student artist Niсolai Feсhin exhibited for the first time at the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Art’s annual Spring Academic Exhibition. He showed Study of a Woman, an alluring work of art that left a lasting impression amongst art critics (Spring exhibition in the halls of the Imperial Academy of Arts 1907, SPb., p. 20, no. 397). In a review of the exhibition, the authoritative art magazine Zolotoye Runo (Golden Fleece), marked the study as "bold" (Const. Sunnerberg. “Artistic life of St. Petersburg, At the Spring Exhibition,” Golden Fleece, 1907. no. 3, p. 72). Although the dimensions of the painting are not listed (in accordance with the then tradition) and no reproduction is included in the exhibition catalog, it can be assumed that Study of a Woman is the same portrait that appeared on the American art market in the 1970s under the name Portrait of Elena Konstantinovna Makovskaya, dated circa 1907-1908. As evidenced by a label on the canvas verso, the model’s name and the circa date of the painting were supplied to the transport company that delivered the artwork from Paris to New York. Comparison with photographs of Elena Makowsky, the daughter of the successful Russian artist Konstantin Makowsky, further reinforces the identity of the sitter.