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Artist or Maker: Alexei Alexeiewitsch Harlamoff (Russian, 1842-1915)
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Notes: THE PROPERTY OF A CANADIAN COLLECTOR
Born in Saratov in 1840, Harlmoff enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg in 1854. In 1868, the young artist won a gold medal and travel scholarship and the stipend allowed him to travel to Paris, where he took up residence and would remain for the rest of his life to study under the great portrait painter and teacher Leon Bonnat. Harlamoff followed his teacher's lead and established himself as a portraitist in Paris, painting intellectual luminaries such as the poet Alphonse Daudet, the writer Ivan Turgenev and the singer Pauline Viardot-Garcia.
Harlamoff participated regularly in the Paris Salon from 1875, as well as the Universal Exposition in Vienna. It was here that American and European collectors discovered the artist and many his works made their way to the United States at the end of the 19th Century. The artist gradually moved away from portraiture and specialized in idealized portraits of girls or young women, and these romanticized portraits of innocence were enormously successful.
In 1874, Harlamoff exhibited two paintings at the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg and was awarded the title 'Academic Portrait Painter' and shortly thereafter he entered the 'Association of Itinerant Exhibitors', which was a group of artists who opposed the traditional Academy in Russia. From 1879, he also contributed to the Itinerant Exposition in Russia, and although art critics and his colleagues criticized his lack of social commentary in his work, they were generous in their praise of his artistic virtuosity.
In Sonia , Harlamoff has presented the viewer with a child of about four years of age, and captured her deep in thought, an expression that is unusual for a child so young. She does not gaze straight out at the viewer as so many of his portraits of young girls (fig. 1), but out of the picture plane, giving the little girl a wistfulness that is more intriguing that a direct and sometimes confrontational stare. The child is set in an unarticulated background executed in deft brushstrokes of red and brown, and the overall tonality of the painting is soft and muted. The redness of the little girl's cheeks stands out against her pale skin and white chemise. The harmony of the palette and the child's gaze combine to create an ode to childhood that is serene, calm and controlled.
This work has been authenticated by Mr. Eckart Lingenauber.
(fig. 2) Harlamoff in his Studio.
(fig. 1) Alexei Harlamoff, Young Girl with a Red Shawl .
