Lot 133: MIKHAIL SPIRIDONOVICH ERASSI

PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION, ENGLAND 1823-1898 ON THE LAKE SHORE signed in Cyrillic l.r. oil on canvas 84 by 121cm, 33 by 47 1/2 in.

In 1854 Mikhail Erassi, a pupil of Alexei Venetsianov (1780-1847), travelled to Switzerland for the first time, funded by a sponsorship from the Imperial Academy of Arts. This trip marked the most productive period of the artist’s career, characterised by a palette of rich greens for foliage set against bright shades for the sky. The offered lot is an exceptional work by an artist rarely found outside museum collections. In 1860, Erassi was awarded the title of Professor of Landscape Art at the Academy for three paintings, one of which was the View of Lake Geneva. Other works by Erassi can be found in the collection of the State Russian Museum in St Petersburg and the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.