Lot 49: GROOTH, IVAN (1717-1801) - A Goose and a White Peacock

GROOTH, IVAN (1717-1801)
A Goose and a White Peacock
, signed and dated 1786.
Oil on canvas, 81 by 64 cm.

Provenance: Private collection, Europe.



Authenticity of the work has been confirmed by the expert V. Petrov.

Ivan Grooth was a German-born artist who became court painter to Empress Elizaveta Petrovna of Russia. The Empress was a keen huntswoman and commissioned the Italian Architect Rastrelli to build her a hunting pavilion and menagerie, Mon Bijou, in the grounds of Tsarskoe Selo. Grooth was tasked with the decoration of the pavilion and he created a series of 43 paintings depicting hunting scenes and domestic animals. Mon Bijou was dismantled a few decades later and the whereabouts of most of these paintings is now unknown. It is possible that the present lot once decorated

the walls of the Mon Bijou pavilion.