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Wilhelm Kotarbinski, FEW Tears. THE Gathered Tears, ca. 1900

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Lot description Show orginal version
Estimations: 52 198 - 73 077 EUR
154.5 x 80.5cm - oil, duplicated canvas signed p.d.: Wilhelm Kotarbiński, above a partially illegible inscription in Cyrillic: Za [...]grietago

l.d. in Cyrillic: Em[ilii] Pr[achovoy].



Provenance:

The dedication on the painting indicates its original owner - Emilia Maria Klementyna Lvovna Prachova, née Lestelle (1849-1927), owner of a Kiev art salon. She was famous for her eccentric behavior, intelligence, sharp tongue and strong, domineering character. Her portraits were painted by Riepin, Kotarbinski and Vrubel. Emilia was the wife of Professor Adrian Prachov (1846-1916), an archaeologist, art historian and critic, who directed the painting work at Kiev's St. Vladimir's Cathedral (1887-1897). One of the group of artists working there was Wilhelm Kotarbinski, hence his intimacy with the Prachov family. It was very close; the artist moved from the Praga Hotel to the Prachow family in 1920 and spent the last year of his life with them. There is a well-known photo of the Prachow family's living room, which shows the offered painting hanging there (S. Udovik, D. Dobriian, op. cit., p. 11).



Literature:

- Report of the Committee of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in the Kingdom of Poland for 1901, Warsaw 1902, p. 35 [Collected tears];

- "Tygodnik Ilustrowany" 1902, no. 12, il. on the cover [Collected Tears];

- Janina Wiercińska, Catalog of works exhibited in the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Warsaw in the years 1860-1914, Wroclaw 1969, p. 168 [Collected tears];

- Sergei Udovik, Daria Dobriian, Wilhelm Kotarbinski, published by Vakler, Kiev 2015, il. s. 11;

- Postcard published by the Kiev publishing house Rasswiet.



Wilhelm Kotarbinski, a painter of scenes with themes drawn from the ancient East, Greece and Rome, as well as the Bible, considered a major rival of Henryk Siemiradzki, began to lean toward fantasy-symbolic themes in the 1890s. The work Human Tears refers to Fyodor Tyutchev's poem of the same title. It belongs to a series of allegorical compositions, painted on canvases with an elongated, vertical format and depicting ephemeral female figures floating above the ground. They are personifications of natural phenomena, seasons of the day or year, moods, emotions, such as Morning Mist (Agra-Art Auction, October 14, 2018, cat. no. 53) and Evening Star (Agra-Art Auction, March 25, 2018, cat. no. 19).

The paintings of Kotarbinski, who was particularly honored at St. Petersburg exhibitions, while his works were usually presented there in a separate room, were very popular. Hence his paintings were reproduced on numerous postcards published in Kiev and Moscow in the early years of the 20th century. They were issued by, among others, the Stockholm printing company Granberg Joint Stock Company, which was also active on the Russian market, and the Kiev publishing house Rasswiet. The offered work, titled in Russian and French, appears on a postcard issued by Rasswiet, among others.

A slightly different version of the same composition was reproduced on the cover of "Tygodnik Ilustrowany" (1902). This is probably the work that was exhibited under the title Collected Tears along with a dozen other paintings by the artist at the Zachęta Gallery in Warsaw in 1901.

Wilhelm Kotarbinski (Nieborów 1849 - Kiev 1921) studied at the Warsaw Drawing Class under Raphael Hadziewicz (years1867-1871), and from 1872 also at the Academy of St. Luke in Rome. After graduating, he opened his own studio in Rome, where he also gave drawing lessons; his students included Maria Bashkirtsev. He returned to the country in 1888 and from then on stayed mainly at his own estate Kalsk (or Kulsk) in Belarus. From there he made numerous trips to Kiev, where he had a studio at the Prague Hotel, participated in exhibitions of the Kiev Art Society, and in 1893 co-founded the Society of Kiev Painters. Together with P. Swiedomsky, M. Nesterov and M. Vrubel, he worked on the fresco decoration of Kiev's St. Vladimir's Cathedral (completed 1894-1895). He was also the author of decorative plafonds and wall paintings in, among others, the home of M. Tereshchenko and the palace of B. Khanenko in Kiev and in the salons of palaces in St. Petersburg and Moscow. He painted primarily compositions with biblical or ancient themes - from the life of the ancient East, Greece and Rome; he also created landscapes and fantastic and symbolic scenes. His paintings are distinguished by sophisticated colors, free technique, peculiar stylization of forms and a specific, often mysterious mood. The artist's greatest popularity came in the 1890s, when - due to the "antique" subject matter of his paintings - he was sometimes compared to Siemiradzki. Kotarbinski's works rarely appear on the art market; most of his works were lost or destroyed during World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution.
Auction
Early Art Auction
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Date
19 March 2023 CET/Warsaw
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Start price
45 934 EUR
Estimations
52 198 - 73 077 EUR
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