Lot 275: KARL PAVLOVICH BRIULLOV (1799-1852)

Lovers' Quarrel signed and inscribed in Russian 'Karl Briullov Rome' (lower left) and with the initials 'C:B' (lower right) watercolor and pencil on paper 81/4 x 91/2in. (21x 24.1cm.) LITERATURE Asarkina, E. Briullov, Moscow, 1963, illus. between pp. 456 and 457 for a watercolor from probably the same series. NOTES When Karl Briullov was born in 1799, the Neoclassical style in Russia still reigned, but the period of its greatest productivity and popularity was over. Perhaps this influenced Briullov's early distaste for the return to classicism; at any rate, despite his education at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (1809-1821), Briullov never fully embraced the style taught by the Academy. After distinguishing himself as a promising and imaginative student and finishing his education, he left Russia for Rome. Once in Italy, notwithstanding the warnings of the Society for the encouragement of Artists, which had funded his travels, Briullov applied himself wholeheartedly to portraits and genre painting. He produced a group of pictures that showed the joys of living, for Briullov saw beauty in the profusion of sensations in life, in the immediacy of human feelings, in simple everyday things. Genre paintings were very popular in the Italian period of Briullov's life. They brought enormous joy and laughter to him and especially, to his clients and friends, as seen in one of his letters from the Briullov family archives, dated July 17, 1825, Rome, to the Society for the encouragement of Artists, where he writes: "Thank you for your letter from April 29, 1825 with the suggestion that I have to paint a copy of Scuola di Atene by Raffallo Sanzio at the Vatican. I already started the copying, but it will take a little longer because I have to finish my previous works: the portrait of Countess Pototskaya and the portrait of the Prince of Mecklenburg. Also, I have several commissions for watercolors in the Flemish (Flamand) style-Quadri di Genre requested by Her Grace Countess M. D. Nesselrode for 5 pictures, depicting national and genre moments of Roman life. His Grace Prince Gallitzin commissioned two paintings in the same style, His Excellency Count F.V. Samarin commissioned 5 of the same, and Her Excellency K. A. Narishkin, 2 of my choice of genre.....Please, do not worry, I am using my free time for the commissions, because the Vatican Gallery is closed for painters three days a week." Mashcovcev, N K.P. Briullov in letters, documents and recollections of contemporaries, Moscow, 1961, pp. 52, 53 The present painting is a good example of the types of genre scenes that Briullov was producing in Italy. One is able to see the Italianesque landscape and typical Italian interior as well as the sweet representation of a lover's quarrel, with a wise old woman in the background shown with a smirk (knowing that the young lovers will soon mend their differences). At this time period, Briullov was certainly not interested in the rules of the Academy. As he himself said, "the artist has the right to deviate from conventional beauty of forms and to seek variety in those simple natural forms which are often even more pleasing to the eye than the austere beauty of statues" Dmitrenko, A. Fifty Russian Artists, Moscow, 1985, p. 89.