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879/​1818

Vasili Dmitrievich Polenov (b. St. Petersburg 1844, d. Kalouga 1927)

Portrait of the Russian byliny singer Vasiliy Petrovich Schegolenok from Onezhye (1817–1894). Signed and dated Va. D. Polenov 79 (in Cyrillic). Oil on canvas. 44×38 cm.

Vasiliy Petrovich Schegolenok was born into a peasant family in Bojarschina, Olonetskaya Region. His uncle, Timofei, had no legs and worked as a shoemaker and sang the byliny. A bylina is a traditional East Slavic oral epic narrative poem, loosely based on historical fact and often embellished with fantasy. Therefore, a bylina could be compared with a folk song from the European Middle Ages. From his uncle, Schegolenok learnt both shoemaking and how to sing the byliny. Schegolenok could not read or write but had a fenomenal memory. He loved to visit different monasteries to hear the holy scriptures, and they matched the tone of his stories from the byliny he had been taught, and the variants of the byliny that he reproduced became very popular. He performed in Moscow and St. Petersburg upon invitation by the Russian author Leo Tolstoi, who used some of the subjects described by Schegolenkov in his own creative work. Russian composers such as Nikolaj Rimski-Korsakov, Milij Balakirev and Alexander Borodin also wrote tunes after Schegolenok’s singing of the byliny.

A study in pencil for the present portrait is owned by the Abramtsevo State Museum in Moscow.

Condition

The submission of bids on this lot number requires the prior registration of a valid debit/credit card, presentation of photo ID and the payment of a deposit of 25.000 DKK on request. Registration of debit/credit card, photo ID and deposit is due no later than the 6th of June.

Please contact Bruun Rasmussen regarding this via email: bids@bruun-rasmussen.dk or tel.: +45 8818 1013.

Condition report on request. Please contact russian@bruun-rasmussen.dk

Additional Remarks

The submission of bids on this lot number requires the prior registration of a valid debit/credit card, presentation of photo ID and the payment of a deposit of 50.000 DKK on request. Registration of debit/credit card, photo ID and deposit is due no later than Friday 25 May.

Please contact Bruun Rasmussen regarding this via email: bids@bruun-rasmussen.dk or tel.: +45 8818 1013.

Please note: The item is subject to the Anti-Money Laundering Act. In the event of a hammer price of DKK 50,000 or more, including buyer’s premium, the buyer must submit a copy of a valid photo ID and proof of address in order to collect the item.

Auction

Russian art & icons, 8 June 2018

Category
Estimate

250,000–300,000 DKK

Price realised

Not sold