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Lot Essay
On 22nd February 1932 Somov wrote to his sister Anna Mikhailova (1873-1945):
‘…I have just started a semi-miniature watercolour of an interior with a dressing table, which I presented to Zheniusechka. I have a good photograph of this work and so I decided to make a modified copy. Do you remember this picture? I painted it in the summer of 1923 and it ended up in Rachmaninoff’s collection in America. Sometimes I like to create new variants of pictures. There is no need to face the struggle of inventing new compositions, which is always difficult for me, and the work unfolds like the embroidery of an aida cloth. And now, with the heavy thoughts that do not escape me, a work like this is far easier for me…’ (quoted from Iu. N. Podkopaeva & A. N. Sveshnikova, Konstantin Andreevich Somov. Pis'ma, Dnevniki. Suzhdeniia sovremennikov, Moscow, 1979, p. 392).
The 1923 oil painting was shown at the exhibition of Russian Art in New York in 1924 from where it was purchased by Sergei Rachmaninoff.
We are grateful to Elena Yakovleva, Doctor of Art History, Senior Researcher of the Russian Institute of Art History, St Petersburg for providing this catalogue note.
‘…I have just started a semi-miniature watercolour of an interior with a dressing table, which I presented to Zheniusechka. I have a good photograph of this work and so I decided to make a modified copy. Do you remember this picture? I painted it in the summer of 1923 and it ended up in Rachmaninoff’s collection in America. Sometimes I like to create new variants of pictures. There is no need to face the struggle of inventing new compositions, which is always difficult for me, and the work unfolds like the embroidery of an aida cloth. And now, with the heavy thoughts that do not escape me, a work like this is far easier for me…’ (quoted from Iu. N. Podkopaeva & A. N. Sveshnikova, Konstantin Andreevich Somov. Pis'ma, Dnevniki. Suzhdeniia sovremennikov, Moscow, 1979, p. 392).
The 1923 oil painting was shown at the exhibition of Russian Art in New York in 1924 from where it was purchased by Sergei Rachmaninoff.
We are grateful to Elena Yakovleva, Doctor of Art History, Senior Researcher of the Russian Institute of Art History, St Petersburg for providing this catalogue note.