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Description: signed in Cyrillic l.l. and dated 1867; signed and dated on reverse

oil on canvas

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Dimensions: 52 by 78cm., 20 1/2 by 30 6/8 in.

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Exhibited: Istanbul, January 2001

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Published: Gianni Caffiero and Ivan Samarine, Seas, Cities and Dreams: The Paintings of Ivan Aivasovsky, London, 2000, pl.59, pp.106-7.

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Notes: Born in Theodosia in the Crimea in 1817, Aivazovsky was to return there at the age of twenty-eight, when after having studied at the Imperial Academy and spending a number of years travelling, he designed a house and studio for himself and bought a small orchard on the southern shore. Upon returning from his trip to Turkey and Asia Minor in 1845, he could not wait to return to Theodosia and write "I enjoy spending winter in St. Petersburg, but at the first breath of spring I am assailed by homesickness and I am drawn to the Crimea and the Black Sea". The Crimea, with Yalta and Theodosia in particular continued to inspire him throughout his lifetime and he was to paint them many times from both life and memory.

The first images of Yalta appear in the 1830's and he was to continue depicting the town in many states but frequently followed the fashion for Romanticism and painted Yalta bathed in enigmatic moonlight. The offered work should be compared with a later painting of the same subject in the Russian Museum (See Grigory Goldovsky, Hovhannes Aivazovsky: Painting, Drawings and Watercolours from the Collections of St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg, 2000, N.64, p.159). And also an earlier work of 1858 in Peterhof which depicts the Oreanda estate near Livadia (a little to the west of Yalta), bequeathed to the artist's patron, Grand Duke Constantine Nicholaievich by the Tzarina Alexandra Feodorovna, to which Aivazovsky was a frequent visitor. Yalta is clearly seen in the middle of the background. An identical 1886 view of Yalta, though on a smaller scale, can be seen in a painting in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (See Tretyakov Gallery Catalogue, Paintings of the Second Half of the 19^th Century, Volume 4, Book 1, No.14, p.42)

Aivasovsky's biographer, Nikolai Sobko compiled a list of paintings executed before 1893. The paintings listed for 1867 include No.294. Yalta, and No.300, Yalta; Crimean View, either of which may possibly be the offered view.

Situated on the southern hills of the Yaila Mountains, Yalta is on a vast open stretch of coastline, with the western end terminating in the cliffs of Cape Aitor surmounted by a lighthouse. The town mainly consisted of wooden houses with wealthy aristocrats building villas in the hills in the latter part of the 19^th century. Chekhov, Tolstoy and Gorky all lived in Yalta for a time.