Yevgeny Alexandrovich Lanceray was born in the town of Morshansk in 1848. In 1812, his French grandfather came to Russia in the ranks of Napoleon’s army and was seriously wounded. After the end of the war, he decided to stay in Russia forever. Yevgeny Lanceray’s path to being a professional sculptor was not straightforward. He was a self-taught artist. Before becoming a sculptor, he received a liberal arts education. Having studied law at the university, Lanceray was awarded the degree of Candidate of Juridical Sciences in 1869. It was the very same year that the talented young man made his successful debut as a sculptor, presenting his works for an exhibition at the Academy of Arts. It is believed that one of Lanceray’s teachers was Nikolai Lieberich, a Russian animalier sculptor who was well known in the mid-19th century. The young academic lawyer acquired high-quality training in sculpture. Having received positive reviews from newspaper critics and the title of a class artist, Lanceray reconsidered his future career path. After that, he devoted himself entirely to sculpture.

Both Lanceray’s earlier and later works demonstrate the artist’s desire to capture every minute detail with surgical precision. The themes and subject matters of most of his works were inspired by the impressions from his numerous exciting journeys. Lanceray had an insatiable passion for travel, for observing and studying the life of various peoples. Several times, he traveled abroad and visited the Middle East, but of even greater importance for his work were his almost annual trips to the central governorates of Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus, Bashkiria, Kyrgyzstan, and many other regions of the Russian Empire. A variety of items from Lanceray’s trips were displayed on the walls of his workshop, including bladed weapons and firearms, saddles, clothes of highlanders and nomads, and household items. All these items, as well as the artist’s drawings and sketches from life, served as valuable material for his work.

History was not one of the main subject matters in Lanceray’s work. Nevertheless, he also worked in this genre of sculpture, creating a number of statues, including the “Strelets” statue from the collection of the Tambov Art Gallery. This statue is distinguished by its thoroughness, originality, and candor. It is a fragment of a composition of clocks with candelabra. The statue entered the Tambov Art Gallery from the collection of E. M. Donskaya (Moscow) in 1983.

Наименование: Strelets
Дата создания: the 19th century
Техника: bronze, casting, chiseling
Место создания: the Russian Empire
Размеры: 33×16,5×13 cm

The Tambov Art Gallery houses a sculpture called “Vityaz” (a Russian word for “a knight”), made by the Russian realist sculptor Yevgeny Lanceray.

Remarkably observant by nature, Lanceray created numerous figurines, which enjoyed great success and set an example for small indoor sculpture. In his early years, Lanceray gravitated toward a certain romantic mood. This fascination was expressed in the images of dashing Cossack riders, Circassians, and others, the feeling of elevation in these images, the impression of swift movement of the depicted animals, and the dynamic compositions. Later, by the 1880s, such sentimentality had given way to a quiet admiration of the life of common people and animals. The themes of Lanceray’s works also became much more varied, now including various genre scenes, always interpreted with utter seriousness and at times — with humor, as well as historical plots, such as the sculpture “Vityaz”, presented in the collection of the art gallery.

The sculpture from the museum’s collection is a fragment of a clock composition with candelabra. The work entered the Tambov Art Gallery in 1983 from the collection of E. M. Donskaya. The sculpture “Vityaz”, like the vast majority of Lanceray’s works, is cast in bronze, which is a metal that can be easily processed (chiseled) and is the best material for casting small and detailed figurines and groups.

Even though Lanceray’s works largely reflected the tastes of his customers, they were copied and cast in large quantities. The casting took place at factories and bronze foundries of various private firms, which purchased Lanceray’s models directly from him and received the right to cast and sell his works for many years. As a rule, the quality of the casting was very high.

While speaking about the significance of Yevgeny Lanceray’s works, it is important to mention his interest in people’s way of life and the use of social undertones, which makes his work inseparable from the progressive direction that Russian art took in the second half of the 19th century.

Наименование: Vityaz
Дата создания: the second half of the 19th century
Техника: bronze, casting, chiseling
Место создания: the Russian Empire
Размеры: 32×15×12,5 cm