Masterpiece for 50 million: in the picture of an unknown artist identified the master’s brush

Expert Viktor Spengler: “In my entire 30-year practice, there have been five such discoveries”

A rare discovery: experts have established that the painting, which for many years was considered the work of an unknown master, was painted by the artist of the imperial court, the grandson of the author of “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” Alexander Radishchev, respected professor and academician Alexei Bogolyubov. The plot depicted the arrival in Simbirsk of Tsarevich Nicholas, the eldest son of Alexander II, who was to ascend the throne after his father. During that trip in 1863, the future emperor got acquainted with the life of the Russian hinterland, and the next year he went to see abroad. However, in Italy, Nicholas fell seriously ill and could not recover – the heir to the throne died in 1865. At the same time – in 1864 – a terrible fire broke out in Simbirsk, the largest in the history of the city, which almost completely destroyed it. So the picture became historical from several points of view at once. It is symbolic that it was opened in the year of the 200th anniversary of its author.

Alexei Bogolyubov is a hereditary nobleman, a professional sailor and military hydrographer, one of the most famous domestic marine painters and the most European among Russian landscape painters of his time. The famous master of academic painting has a lot of works, but there is nothing to worry about – most of them are kept in museums. Right now, the Tretyakov Gallery is preparing to show the best of them at the anniversary exhibition.

— My friends accidentally bought this painting back in the early 1990s, along with a number of other works. It was darkened, the author is unknown, but they liked the plot, – says the head of the Center for Artistic Expertise. I.E. Repina Victor Spengler. “Two years ago they brought it to me and asked me to study it, not counting on anything. We looked and immediately thought of Bogolyubov – his style is guessed. This is a great success – in my entire 30-year practice, there have been about five such discoveries. On our restoration table there was a museum-level thing that could become a worthy decoration for the upcoming anniversary exhibition in the Tretyakov Gallery. More often we detect fakes, attribution errors, but here, on the contrary, we discovered a masterpiece.

How much can this work be valued?

– I think 50 million rubles. Bogolyubov’s works rarely appear on the market, especially of this level. But the owners are not going to sell it.

The painting depicts a mass scene: against the backdrop of heavy clouds, under the majestic vaults of monumental temples, in the light of lanterns, a crowd of people greets the heir to the throne. In the foreground, mischievous boys rush about, ladies in caps stand with their mouths open, men pull their hats up. Written monumentally and at the same time alive.

Why did the study take two years? The question of attribution is a delicate matter. Technologists and art historians must weigh all the pros and cons when establishing the authorship of the artist, especially since we are talking about a very famous master here. In this case, all the “testimony” converged. The analysis of the paint layer determined that all the pigments are from the 19th century. The radiograph made it clear that the author wrote it in “one sitting”, without changing the details. Comparative art history analysis revealed that many works of that period, like this painting, are not signed. But the hand – the manner in which clouds are written, the light of lanterns, the outlines of buildings, people – is Bogolyubov’s. And there were also two pencil sketches of the Simbirsk plot and, most importantly, the author’s copy with exactly the same plot, which is stored in the Penza Art Gallery and is listed under the name “Illumination”.

In addition, the artist himself left memories of a trip to Simbirsk and a painting painted there. “We arrived in Simbirsk, a noble city. We were placed in the house of N.D. Seliverstov, then a colonel <…>. His house was a bar. There was even a love for art <…>. N.D. Seliverstov asked me to paint him a picture of our entrance to the main street, which I did so that after the terrible fire that befell Simbirsk, my picture, according to Seliverstov, became historical, depicting the former city before the fire, ”the artist wrote in the diary. By the way, it was this mention that made it possible to accurately determine the year the painting was created. After all, the trip of the Tsarevich around Russia lasted three years – from 1860 to 1863.

— The painting was dark and stained when it came to us. When we illuminated it in infrared rays, and then the restorers removed the varnish, a plot was opened where the Tsarevich in a cocked hat is visible, towering over the crowd of gendarmes guarding him, the faces of the people around, – says expert technologist Vadim Pyatkov. – This is how Bogolyubov and those accompanying Nikolai Alexandrovich describe the moment of arrival in Simbirsk. Nobles from all the surroundings gathered there, on the square nearby were ordinary people, merchants, in general, all classes. We are watching the Tsarevich from Streletskaya Street, we see the Nikolsko-Kazansky Church and a little further the Trinity Cathedral, which burned down during the fire of the following year and was not restored.

By the way, this crowded meeting is described in a landmark work for history – “Letters on the journey of the sovereign heir to the crown prince in Russia from St. Petersburg to the Crimea”, written by historian Ivan Babst and politician Konstantin Pobedonostsev in 1864. These chronicles, the name and style of which, ironically, echo the famous work of Alexander Radishchev, are called by experts “an important monument of social thought in post-reform Russia.”