Lot 130: MALTZEV, GREGORY 1880-1952 Portrait of Sofronov

MALTZEV, GREGORY 1880-1952 Portrait of Sofronov signed and dated August 1940 and inscribed in Cyrillic. Pencil on paper, 35.5 by 28.5 cm. A winner of the St. Petersburg Academy Gold Medal, Maltzev preceded Sofronov by about twenty years. He became an iconographer and a portrait painter for the Russian emigre society in Italy. Maltzev's addition of colour was perhaps a sly comment on Sofronov's signature full lips on his iconographic subjects.