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Lot Essay
The present work belongs to Repin’s famous series of graphic works known as the ‘Nordman Album’, a name given to the group in 1911 by Repin himself when the portraits were sent to the International Art Exhibition in Rome. Only portraits of friends and acquaintances of Repin and Natalia Borisovna Nordman that were executed at Penates were included, 41 of which were shown in Rome.
Over time, these works were scattered and entered various collections. In the list compiled by Repin, number 39 marks portraits of Mr and Mrs Berenshtam. Fedor Gustavovich (1862, Tbilisi - 1937, Leningrad), was an architect, graphic artist, librarian, bibliographer, artistic figure, member of the Academy of Arts (1908) and State Councillor (1916). In 1887 Berenshtam married Vera Alexandrovna Pypina (1864-1930), daughter of Alexander Nikolaievich Pypin (1833-1904), a famous historian of Russian literature. In the Pypin’s convivial home many famous figures of the second half of the nineteenth century gathered; composers and musicians, writers, poets and, politicians. Vera Alexandrovna (Berenshtam by her first marriage, Liatskii by her second), subject of the present work, was the niece of the Russian democratic writer N. G. Chernyshevsky (1828-1889), an artist and a literary scholar.
Repin met Vera Aleksandrovna and Fedor Gustavovich at the Pypin house. They became close in 1893, when Repin became a professor at the Imperial Academy of Arts and Berenshtam was head of the library there.
Drawings from the Nordman Album look were all executed on sheets of grey artist’s card, measuring about 42 x 34 cm.: the handwritten list of portraits is preserved in the archive of the Russian Academy of Arts.
We would like to thank Liudmila Andrushchenko, Senior Researcher at the Ilya E. Repin Estate-Museum 'Penates' for providing this note.
Over time, these works were scattered and entered various collections. In the list compiled by Repin, number 39 marks portraits of Mr and Mrs Berenshtam. Fedor Gustavovich (1862, Tbilisi - 1937, Leningrad), was an architect, graphic artist, librarian, bibliographer, artistic figure, member of the Academy of Arts (1908) and State Councillor (1916). In 1887 Berenshtam married Vera Alexandrovna Pypina (1864-1930), daughter of Alexander Nikolaievich Pypin (1833-1904), a famous historian of Russian literature. In the Pypin’s convivial home many famous figures of the second half of the nineteenth century gathered; composers and musicians, writers, poets and, politicians. Vera Alexandrovna (Berenshtam by her first marriage, Liatskii by her second), subject of the present work, was the niece of the Russian democratic writer N. G. Chernyshevsky (1828-1889), an artist and a literary scholar.
Repin met Vera Aleksandrovna and Fedor Gustavovich at the Pypin house. They became close in 1893, when Repin became a professor at the Imperial Academy of Arts and Berenshtam was head of the library there.
Drawings from the Nordman Album look were all executed on sheets of grey artist’s card, measuring about 42 x 34 cm.: the handwritten list of portraits is preserved in the archive of the Russian Academy of Arts.
We would like to thank Liudmila Andrushchenko, Senior Researcher at the Ilya E. Repin Estate-Museum 'Penates' for providing this note.