Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964)

Vladimir Bachkiroff knew Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova personally as well as a number of the other most significant émigré Russian artists of the period (both Alexandre Iacovleff and Boris Grigoriev painted his portrait). A rare and deeply striking work by Filipp Maliavin, Portrait of a Russian Maiden, also formerly from the Bachkiroff collection and exhibited in St Petersburg in 1917, was sold Christie's, London, 20 November 1997, lot 48.

While this oil has been dated 1900 on the reverse of the board onto which it has been laid down, the acquisition date by Bachkiroff and the style of the work make it more likely that it was painted a decade later. It was in 1900 that Larionov met his lifelong partner, Natalia Goncharova and it is certainly possible to speculate that the two figurines depicted and the evocative dating are a romantic allusion to this fateful acquaintance.