SOLOMATKIN, LEONID (1837–1883) Lot n° 12

Scène de nuit près d'une taverne, signé et daté 1872. Huile sur toile, 67 par 98,5 cm. Provenance : Importante collection privée, Europe. L'authenticité du travail a été confirmée par l'expert E. Nesterova. L'authenticité a également été confirmée par l'expert V. Petrov. Literature: E. Nesterova, Leonid Ivanovich Solomatkin, St Petersburg, Zolotoi Vek, 2006, No. 66, illustrated.  The work presented for auction, Night Scene near a Tavern, belongs to the latter period of Leonid Solomatkin’s œuvre, when “the Gogol in painting”, as his fellow artists called him, produced his most original pictures. Of the 200 pictures that he painted barely a quarter have survived: many are now lost irretrievably. That is why the appearance at an auction of such a rare canvas, one of the best in the celebrated artist’s legacy, is a major event. Leonid Ivanovich Solomatkin (1837–1883) was a gifted Russian genre painter who displayed a striking individuality and artistic flair. The painter has been called “the artist of the urban poor” because of his penchant for depicting “the city’s low orders” who “liked to hang out by a tavern”. The artist himself was one of them, so that he depicted his characters with a good deal of empathy and humour, without the finger-pointing tendentiousness shown by many painters among his contemporaries. The grotesque expressiveness of the images together with a concise painting style and an emotional handling of colour, as well as a rare sense of self-deprecating humour, make the master’s works quite distinctive. The picture Night Scene near a Tavern is typical of Solomatkin in terms of its subject matter and artistic technique. What is depicted is probably an inn on the outskirts of a village. The horse-drawn sleigh that is standing by the gate indicates that visitors are likely to be able to stay at the house ove