"Still Life with Fruit" by Ilya Mashkov for auction of Russian art on June 3 with an estimate of 1-1.5 million pounds. The work will bring to the pre-auction exhibition in Moscow on 24-26 April 2013

Ilya Mashkov Still Life with Fruit
Oil on canvas. 103 x 133,8
Estimate: 1-1,5 million pounds
Source: Press Release Christie's

«Still Life with Fruit" (1910) Mashkov (1881-1944) was first presented at the first exhibition of "Jack of Diamonds". This work will first appear on the art market since its writing and will be the top lot of the Russian Trading Christie's, which will be held in London on June 3, 2013,.

Moscow public for the first time since 1910, see a picture of a 20 th in a row exhibition at Christie's in Russia, which will take place in the House of Spiridonov from 24 to 26 April 2013. Along with it will show other exhibits, covering a total of 350-year history of world art.

«Still Life with Fruit" reflects the undeniable influence of the French Fauvist, so fully represented in the collections of Moscow Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov. Nevertheless, it features a truly unique combination of innovation Mashkovskaya Western modernism and traditional Russian art school. Flat perspective associated with painting on trays, blank background sends the viewer to the splints, and coarsened shape of fruit reminiscent of the Polovtsian stone sculptures. Speaking of the influence of Western modernism in the work of Mashkov's impossible not to draw attention to the subject of the picture, the color palette and shapes depicted objects that refer to the work of the Fauves, in particular - to the works of Matisse, while the blue-green background still life reminiscent of paintings of Cezanne. In addition, some things in this work speaks to the purely classical influence - for example, the order in which are located on the table fruit. Perfect symmetry and clearly marked center of the composition reminiscent of works by Giotto and icons depicting the Virgin and Child.

This impressive in its scope still life was one of 20 works Mashkov included in the first exhibition of "Jack of Diamonds" , held from December 1910 to January 1911. The list of exhibits, an initiative Natalia Goncharova , Petr Konchalovsky , Mikhail Fedorovich Larionov and Aristarchus Lentulova , together with the works of Russian artists includes paintings of French Fauves, representatives of German expressionism and some sezannistov.

the last time, "Still Life with Fruit" was presented to the public during the exhibition, organized by the Society of Contemporary Art at the Museum of the City of Amsterdam in 1913, alongside works by Derain, Mondrian and Konchalovsky. The appearance of this auction is a unique opportunity to acquire not only the undisputed masterpiece of a prominent Russian artists, but also the work that has great historical significance.

By about 1920, "Still Life with Fruit" was in the collection of William Beffi (1880-1950). Being personally familiar with Marc Chagall , Kandinsky , and Le Fauconnier, was an avid Beffi collector of Russian and German Expressionists, by the standards of the early twentieth century, his collection, which was in Amsterdam, was a collection of world-class. Many of the works in the collection previously abides Beffi, now included in the collections of leading museums, including the Guggenheim Museum, Museum of the City of Amsterdam and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Despite the lack of documentary evidence of where and when the work was acquired, there is reason to believe that Beffi purchased it in 1913 at the urging of either Le Fauconnier, who himself was a participant of the exhibition "Jack of Diamonds" in 1910 and the exhibition at the City Museum in Amsterdam in 1913 year, or Conrad Kikerta - Dutch painter and art critic, worked as a secretary and treasurer of the Society of Contemporary Art.

Source : Press Release Christie's