Boris Dmitrievich Grigor'ev (1886-1939)

The present watercolour relates to a farming scene in Boris Grigor'ev's book illustrating some of the works from his Rasseïa cycle circa 1916-1921 (see B. Grigor'ev, Rasseja, Berlin, 1921). As Louis Réau explains, the title Rasseïa was chosen to suggest a land of villages and boroughs populated by peasants and workmen; the Russia that Grigor'ev wished to capture in his portraits and genre scenes. The titles Rus' and Rossiia would have been inappropriate; the former suggests the ancient Russia depicted by Nesterov and Vasnetsov, the latter suggests the bureaucratic Russia of Peter the Great (see B. Grigor'ev, Faces of Russia, London, 1924, p. 16).