Portrait of Serge Lifar (1905-1986)

Details

Zinaida Serebriakova (1884-1967)
Portrait of Serge Lifar (1905-1986)
signed in Cyrillic, inscribed in Russian and dated ‘To S. M. Lifar/in/good memory,/from Z. Serebriakova./Paris, 22 Dec. 1961’ (lower left)
oil on paper
28 ¼ x 22 ¾ in. (71.8 x 58 cm.)

Provenance

Serge Lifar (1905-1986).
By descent to Countess Lilian Ahlefeldt-Laurvig (1914-2008).
A gift from the above to the present owner.

Literature

V. Kniazeva, Zinaida Serebriakova. Pis'ma. Sovremenniki o khudozhnitse [Correspondence. Contemporaries about the artist], Moscow, 1987, p. 175.

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

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Lot Essay

Lately I had a few sittings: [I] painted two portraits of Serge Lifar, who kindly agreed to sit for me [...] We talked a lot about Pushkin - he has original letters from Pushkin to Natalia Goncharova in his collection! He published a book with the full text of those letters and organised an exhibition dedicated to Pushkin in 1937...
A letter from Zinaida Serebriakova to her daughter Tatiana, Paris, 23 December 1961

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