Auction

Mouravieff-Apostol-Korobyine Family Art Collection Auctioned in New York

April 15, 2008 — Sotheby’s Russian Art Sale, New York

Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi, Birch Grove, 1881. Formerly in the collection of Fedor Artemievich Tereshchenko.

Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi’s celebrated landscape Birch Grove, painted in 1881, was sold by Sotheby’s as Lot 45 in its Russian Art auction.

The painting had been acquired directly from the artist by Fedor Artemievich Tereshchenko of Kyiv and subsequently passed by descent through the family.

Artist: Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi (1842–1910)

Title: Birch Grove

Date: 1881

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 65 × 45½ inches (165 × 115.5 cm)

Estimate: US$2,000,000–$3,000,000

Sale price, including buyer’s premium: US$3,065,000

Provenance

Fedor Artemievich Tereshchenko, Kyiv, acquired directly from the artist; thence by descent.

The painting is the second of three completed versions of Kuindzhi’s Birch Grove. The first, dated 1879, is in the State Tretyakov Gallery, while the third, dated 1901, is in the National Art Museum of Belarus.

Kuindzhi originally painted this version for the Ural industrialist and collector Pavel Pavlovich Demidov, Prince of San Donato. When that commission did not proceed, Fedor Artemievich Tereshchenko acquired the painting for 7,000 rubles—an exceptional price for a Russian landscape at that time.

The work became part of the important Tereshchenko family collection, which contributed substantially to the foundation of the Kyiv Museum of Russian Art, now the National Museum “Kyiv Art Gallery.”