Lady in an Armchair
Creation period
1900 years
Dimensions
149,6x134,8 cm
149,6х134,8 cm
149,6х134,8 cm
Technique
Oil and canvas
Exhibition
5
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Leon Bakst
Lady in an Armchair
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The portrait of the lady was painted by Leon Bakst in the 1900s. At the time the artist was already known to the capital city’s public as the author of stage sets for the main productions in the Aleksandrovsky and Mikhailovsky theatres. Together with Alexander Benois and Serge Diaghilev he founded the Mir iskusstva group and produced graphics for its periodical.
In those years Bakst painted quite a few portraits of celebrities: dancers Vaslav Nijinsky and Isadora Duncan, poets Zinaida Gippius and Andrei Bely.
In those years Bakst painted quite a few portraits of celebrities: dancers Vaslav Nijinsky and Isadora Duncan, poets Zinaida Gippius and Andrei Bely.
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He had so many commissions that in one of his letters to Diaghilev Bakst noted:
“From all sides they come tearing me to pieces and each moment seems unmissably important, without which everything would come crushing down”.
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About picture
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Although it is not known exactly who was the sitter for Lady in an Armchair, art scholars believe that Bakst painted French actress Marcelle Josset. In the 1890s she performed on stage at the Mikhailovsky Theatre. Josset and Bakst were close, and the artist left St Petersburg and moved to Paris because of her. He described their affair in the autobiographical story called ‘Cruel First Love’.
Bakst painted this portrait with light strokes in subdued colours. He worked in his customary manner: the face of the sitter is painted in fine lines and the background is done in slender strokes. Marcelle Josset posed in a dark dress with flounces and a high collar. The furs over the arm of the chair, gold trimming on the clothes, the pose of the sitter — all that noted by art critics as intentionally overstated elements of a salon portrait. Whereas originally the name was reserved for the paintings entered for the Paris Salon, later salon painting became a separate genre.
Bakst painted this portrait with light strokes in subdued colours. He worked in his customary manner: the face of the sitter is painted in fine lines and the background is done in slender strokes. Marcelle Josset posed in a dark dress with flounces and a high collar. The furs over the arm of the chair, gold trimming on the clothes, the pose of the sitter — all that noted by art critics as intentionally overstated elements of a salon portrait. Whereas originally the name was reserved for the paintings entered for the Paris Salon, later salon painting became a separate genre.
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The artist received the commission from Josset herself, and after they broke up the portrait was never displayed. In 1903 Léon Bakst married Lyubov Gritsenko, a daughter of the famous collector Pavel Tretyakov.
This canvas had for a long time stayed in various private collections before it was bought in 2011 by the Khanty-Mansiysk’s Generations Foundation for the collection entitled “Rarities and Art Treasures”. In 2011, the portrait Lady in the Armchair, together with other exhibits, was transferred to the newly established Khanty-Mansiysk State Museum of Fine Arts.
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State Museum of Fine Arts of Khanty-Mansiysk
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Lady in an Armchair
Creation period
1900 years
Dimensions
149,6x134,8 cm
149,6х134,8 cm
149,6х134,8 cm
Technique
Oil and canvas
Exhibition
5
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