Palmyra
Provenance: Private collection, England. Authenticity of the work has been confirmed by the experts Yu. Rybakova and E. Yakovleva. Exhibited: Alexandre Iacovleff. Peintre attaché à l'Expédition Citroën Centre-Asie , Galerie J. Charpentier, Paris, 16 May-4 June 1933. Literature: Exhibition catalogue, Alexandre Iacovleff. Peintre attaché à l'Expédition Citroën Centre-Asie , Galerie J. Charpentier, Paris, 1933, p. 5, listed. The solo exhibition of the celebrated Russian artist and traveller Alexander Evgenevich Yakovlev, which opened on 16 May 1933 at the prestigious Jean Charpentier gallery, was one of the outstanding events of artistic life in Paris. The exhibition represented the creative fruits of the Trans-Asian expedition organised by the French automobile company Citroën. Like the earlier Trans-African expedition (1924-1925), this Asian journey (1931-1932) had scientific, cultural and promotional aims. It began in Beirut and ended in Peking, passing through Syria, Kurdistan, Persia, Afghanistan, Kashmir, the Pamir Himalayas, Sinkiang, Turkestan, Mongolia and China. The progress of the vehicles and the work of the expedition were complicated by geographical, political, religious and criminal factors. Nevertheless, the team managed to assemble extremely valuable materials relating to the cultural, geological, botanical and zoological worlds of the Asian continent. Alexander Yakovlev brought back hundreds of drawings, sketches and studies which, once back in Paris, he worked up into a whole series of paintings. It appears from the catalogue that the artist presented 377 paintings and drawings at the exhibition. Amazed by their "abundance" and "high quality", Alexander Benois wrote that "It is difficult to believe that every exhibit was the work of a single hand and executed in a very short space of time, very many of them on the spot, in the most uncomfortable conditions, requiring an iron constitution and an utterly exceptional adaptability." Adaptability was indeed crucially important in Asia, for the local populations were by no means always hospitable towards Europeans. The issue of posing for pictures was also difficult, since the Koran forbad portraying likenesses. The travellers' lives were further complicated by natural climatic disasters: dust-storms, for example, impeded the view of Syria's most important monument, the celebrated Palmyra. It is no coincidence that three of the six pictures worked up from studies done in situ were entitled Palmyra in a Sand-Storm, The Necropolis of Palmyra after a Sand-Storm and Caravan Caught in a Sand-Storm . The other three canvases had a far shorter title: Palmyra . The present painting is one of these. In this horizontally elongated picture the artist depicts a panorama of the ruins of ancient Palmyra, once the most beautiful town of the Roman province which astonished the people of the time with its magnificent temples, tombs and colonnades. In the 3rd century, the town was destroyed by the Romans, however under the Byzantine regime that followed, it nevertheless remained a border post and then fell into complete decay under Arab rule. A new wave of celebrity hit Palmyra in the second half of the 19th century, when European travellers and scientific expeditions flooded in. Local people sold them reliefs stolen from despoiled tombs. Alexander Yakovlev had heard about the historical monuments of classical Palmyra when still a student at the St Petersburg Academy of Arts. When he saw it with his own eyes, he immediately recorded his impression of "unending rows of columns punctuated in places by arches or ruined temples". The artist wrote in his diary that "in the sad lifelessness of evening in the desert, where a thin, dark curtain of sand obscures the vivid colours of sunset", there appeared before him an "extraordinary vision - the colossal skeleton of a dead city stretched across several kilometres". This impression was reinforced by the light and the fact that "the view was r
Palmyra
Provenance: Private collection, England. Authenticity of the work has been confirmed by the experts Yu. Rybakova and E. Yakovleva. Exhibited: Alexandre Iacovleff. Peintre attaché à l'Expédition Citroën Centre-Asie , Galerie J. Charpentier, Paris, 16 May-4 June 1933. Literature: Exhibition catalogue, Alexandre Iacovleff. Peintre attaché à l'Expédition Citroën Centre-Asie , Galerie J. Charpentier, Paris, 1933, p. 5, listed. The solo exhibition of the celebrated Russian artist and traveller Alexander Evgenevich Yakovlev, which opened on 16 May 1933 at the prestigious Jean Charpentier gallery, was one of the outstanding events of artistic life in Paris. The exhibition represented the creative fruits of the Trans-Asian expedition organised by the French automobile company Citroën. Like the earlier Trans-African expedition (1924-1925), this Asian journey (1931-1932) had scientific, cultural and promotional aims. It began in Beirut and ended in Peking, passing through Syria, Kurdistan, Persia, Afghanistan, Kashmir, the Pamir Himalayas, Sinkiang, Turkestan, Mongolia and China. The progress of the vehicles and the work of the expedition were complicated by geographical, political, religious and criminal factors. Nevertheless, the team managed to assemble extremely valuable materials relating to the cultural, geological, botanical and zoological worlds of the Asian continent. Alexander Yakovlev brought back hundreds of drawings, sketches and studies which, once back in Paris, he worked up into a whole series of paintings. It appears from the catalogue that the artist presented 377 paintings and drawings at the exhibition. Amazed by their "abundance" and "high quality", Alexander Benois wrote that "It is difficult to believe that every exhibit was the work of a single hand and executed in a very short space of time, very many of them on the spot, in the most uncomfortable conditions, requiring an iron constitution and an utterly exceptional adaptability." Adaptability was indeed crucially important in Asia, for the local populations were by no means always hospitable towards Europeans. The issue of posing for pictures was also difficult, since the Koran forbad portraying likenesses. The travellers' lives were further complicated by natural climatic disasters: dust-storms, for example, impeded the view of Syria's most important monument, the celebrated Palmyra. It is no coincidence that three of the six pictures worked up from studies done in situ were entitled Palmyra in a Sand-Storm, The Necropolis of Palmyra after a Sand-Storm and Caravan Caught in a Sand-Storm . The other three canvases had a far shorter title: Palmyra . The present painting is one of these. In this horizontally elongated picture the artist depicts a panorama of the ruins of ancient Palmyra, once the most beautiful town of the Roman province which astonished the people of the time with its magnificent temples, tombs and colonnades. In the 3rd century, the town was destroyed by the Romans, however under the Byzantine regime that followed, it nevertheless remained a border post and then fell into complete decay under Arab rule. A new wave of celebrity hit Palmyra in the second half of the 19th century, when European travellers and scientific expeditions flooded in. Local people sold them reliefs stolen from despoiled tombs. Alexander Yakovlev had heard about the historical monuments of classical Palmyra when still a student at the St Petersburg Academy of Arts. When he saw it with his own eyes, he immediately recorded his impression of "unending rows of columns punctuated in places by arches or ruined temples". The artist wrote in his diary that "in the sad lifelessness of evening in the desert, where a thin, dark curtain of sand obscures the vivid colours of sunset", there appeared before him an "extraordinary vision - the colossal skeleton of a dead city stretched across several kilometres". This impression was reinforced by the light and the fact that "the view was r
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