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Lot Essay
'The month Tatiana arrived in Paris, July 1925, sasha was just ending his most adventurous voyage to date, an expedition across Africa funded by the Citroën automobile empire. It has gone down in ethnographic history as the Croisière Noire [...].
The expedition took more than a year to prepare, for depots storing soe eighty tons of foodstuffs and mechanical supplies had to be established along the scheduled route. To be head of the expedition, Citroën chose a vice president of his company, Georges-Marie Haardt, an explorer and art connoisseur who had already traveled extensively in the Sahara [...].
The convoy of eight caterpillar-treaded vehicles that finally set out in October of 1924 in Colomb-Béchar, in wouthern Algeria, would not reach Madagascar until June of the following year. Beyond the immense desert spaces, the expedition also had to tackle vast stretches of virgin forest and swamps in which its vehicles cam close to being buried in mud. Rocky passes had to be blasted with dynamite, savanna fires that could have melted the very rubber of the vehicles' treads had to be circumvented [...].
Throughout the crises and complications inevitable to such an expedition, "Iaco", as my great-uncle's colleagues called him, displayed a cheerful calm and industriousness that became legendary among his peers [...].
"Iacovledd, indefatigable, continues to draw notwithstanding the shaking of the vehicle," Haardt wrote in his journal. "A methodical man, never bored with anything except vulgarity, he is the charming companion of often trying hours." [...]
Nineteen twenty-five - the year Mein Kampf was first published and Charlie Chaplin issued The Gold Rush - also marked the return of Citroën's Croisière Noire from Africa [...].
Iacovleff's fame grew by bounds after the expedition's return. His 1926 exhibit at Paris's prestigious Galerie Charpentier, in which he showed many large paintings based on his African sketches, totally sold out.'
ibid. , pp. 31-35
The expedition took more than a year to prepare, for depots storing soe eighty tons of foodstuffs and mechanical supplies had to be established along the scheduled route. To be head of the expedition, Citroën chose a vice president of his company, Georges-Marie Haardt, an explorer and art connoisseur who had already traveled extensively in the Sahara [...].
The convoy of eight caterpillar-treaded vehicles that finally set out in October of 1924 in Colomb-Béchar, in wouthern Algeria, would not reach Madagascar until June of the following year. Beyond the immense desert spaces, the expedition also had to tackle vast stretches of virgin forest and swamps in which its vehicles cam close to being buried in mud. Rocky passes had to be blasted with dynamite, savanna fires that could have melted the very rubber of the vehicles' treads had to be circumvented [...].
Throughout the crises and complications inevitable to such an expedition, "Iaco", as my great-uncle's colleagues called him, displayed a cheerful calm and industriousness that became legendary among his peers [...].
"Iacovledd, indefatigable, continues to draw notwithstanding the shaking of the vehicle," Haardt wrote in his journal. "A methodical man, never bored with anything except vulgarity, he is the charming companion of often trying hours." [...]
Nineteen twenty-five - the year Mein Kampf was first published and Charlie Chaplin issued The Gold Rush - also marked the return of Citroën's Croisière Noire from Africa [...].
Iacovleff's fame grew by bounds after the expedition's return. His 1926 exhibit at Paris's prestigious Galerie Charpentier, in which he showed many large paintings based on his African sketches, totally sold out.'
ibid. , pp. 31-35