Live Auction 7968Russian Art
Fedor Tolstoi (1783-1873)
Lot 4

Fedor Tolstoi (1783-1873)

Red and white currants

Closed6 June 2011

Price Realised

GBP 8,125

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Fedor Tolstoi (1783-1873)
Red and white currants
signed in Cyrillic and inscribed in Russian 'Drawn from nature, Count Feodor Tolstoi' (lower right), dated '1818' (lower left)
pencil and watercolour, heightened with white, on paper
6 x 9½ in. (15.5 x 24 cm.)

Specialist note

Currants were popular motifs for Fedor Tolstoi: after presenting a similar work to Empress Elisabeth Alekseevna, wife of Emperor Alexander I, the artist was presented with a diamond ring and thereafter was commissioned to repeat the composition whenever the Empress required a gift for a member of the Imperial family or an important member of the court. According to his daughter, Tolstoi claimed that his '...whole family was fed by a single currant'. A similar version of this watercolour, dated 1818, is in the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.