Lot 9: Alexandra Alekseevna Venetsianova (1816-1882) Portrait of a young woman

Portrait of a young woman
signed in Cyrillic and dated '1845' (centre right); stretcher inscribed in Cyrillic '1845, 12 December' (top), further inscribed in Cyrillic 'Venetsianova Al. Al. 1816-1875' (bottom)
oil on canvas
30.5 x 26cm (12 x 10 1/4in).

PROVENANCE:
Purchased by the parents of the present owner in New York, circa 1970s

Alexandra Venetsianova was the daughter of the famous Russian artist Aleksei Venetsianov (1780-1847), often regarded as the founder of the 'Russian genre'. In the early 1820s, he founded a school at his country estate of Safonkovo and there taught more than seventy talented painters, his daughter among them.

Alexandra Alekseevna's style was very close to the manner of Aleksei Venetsianov. In her works she depicted still lifes and scenes of peasant life: the harvests, tending the land, and happy motherhood. Although never able to reach the artistic virtuosity of her father, Alexandra inherited Venetsianov's lyrical, individual approach and combined it with a romantic and unconstrained expression of human feeling.

The present portrait of a young woman is defined with a simplicity and lyricism typical of Venetsianova's works and is reminiscent of her father's paintings of peasant women. It is a purely intimate portrait: a young woman draped in a flowing shawl, portrayed in a state of calm contemplation, gazing directly at the viewer. Her pose and dress bear a strong resemblance to the images of Quattrocento Madonnas or early Russian icons. The face, the features of which are executed with soft, flickering strokes, is imbued with a certain eulogistic melancholy and radiates a calm moral purity.

Alexandra's memoirs of her father and his methods of teaching from the 1860s became an invaluable source of information about Aleksei Venetsianov and many of his pupils. Venetsianova's works are in the Tretyakov Gallery and Tver Art Gallery.