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Christa Zaat



Konstantin Yakovlevich Kryzhitsky (Russian painter) 1858 - 1911
Woodland Landscape, 1898
oil on canvas
90 x 143 cm. (35.5 x 56.25 in.)
signed in Cyrillic and dated 98 l.r.
private collection

Catalogue Note Sotheby's
Born in Kiev in 1858, Konstantin Kryzhitsky trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in St Petersburg. He attended the studio of Mikhail Klodt, a founding member of the Peredvizhniki, and from 1879 frequently exhibited in St Petersburg and abroad, most notably at the International Exhibition in Munich in 1909 where he was awarded a gold medal for his Frosty Morning. Kryzhitsky was famed for his monumental landscapes which drew together the varied lands, dramatic skies and expansive vistas of Russia, Scandinavia and the Baltics, and which were acquired by both Alexander III and Pavel Tretyakov.

A restless traveller, Kryzhitsky made lengthy expeditions around northern and central Russia, preferring its forbidding forests to the sun-drenched shores of Crimea. The geographical diversity of his landscapes and their vague titles make it nearly impossible to pinpoint their exact locations. The rolling hills and rich, impenetrable woodland depicted in the present lot are nevertheless reminiscent of the lush environs of Zvenigorod, a fashionable town just outside Moscow. In the late 1880s and 1890s, Kryzhitsky is known to have been a frequent visitor to Count Sheremetev's nearby estate of Vvedenskoe. Situated on the banks of the Moscow river, it boasted an impressive panoramic view of the late-14th century Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, one of the most important monastery complexes in Russia.

It is worth pointing out the faint outlines of domes and towers dotted along the skyline, pentimenti from an earlier composition underneath which bear a strong resemblance to 19th century views of the Volga town of Yurevets. The tree-stumps which can be seen in the foreground of the composition serve as a reminder of the limited impact of human interference on this magnificently impenetrable and never-ending forest.