A rare work of St. Petersburg interior painting divulges a secret: a tsar’s palace whose sacral furnishings did not conform to the strict rules of the Orthodox Church, the artwork will be on auction on 20 October 2016.
Piotr Tutukin (1819–1900) was born the son of an imperial palace servant and was himself a fire-stoker at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. His artistic talent earned him permission to visit courses at the Imperial Academy of Arts, where his unique gift for interior painting quickly became evident. Tutukin was made a member of the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1855; in 1879, he became curator of the Hermitage picture gallery. His painted views of Winter Palace interiors can still be found in its collection.
For over 100 years, Tutukin’s rendering of a palace church – which will soon come to auction at Dorotheum – belonged to a German family that had always passed down the opinion that the painting showed the church in the Winter Palace. Only the date, the name of the artist and the word “palace” were clearly legible in the inscription on the back of the painting, and the red curtains on the windows are another clear indicator that the space is part of the imperial household.
And yet the ceiling in the Winter Palace’s cathedral is twice as high, and the space itself looks completely different. Documents and illustrations from the mid-19th-century finally helped to identify the church: Tutukin’s painting actually shows the church of St. Alexander Nevsky in Anichkov Palace on Nevsky Prospect. Anichkov Palace was residence to Tsar Nicholas I after the great fire at the Winter Palace in 1837, and the Tsar gave it to his son, the future Tsar Alexander II, a short time later. Around that same time, the old, baroque palace was converted to reflect the Neoclassical style. Court architect Sachar Dildin also drew up new plans for the palace church: the sanctuary was moved to the second floor, which is why it has a lower ceiling. The church was adorned with twelve marble angel statues by sculptor Ivan Vitali, and it was precisely these angels that prompted the next renovation of this palace cathedral: the statues in the sanctuary did not conform to the strict rules of the Orthodox Church. And so the church of St. Alexander Nevsky in Anichkov Palace underwent another complete renovation in 1866. Tutukin’s painting shows us this church as it looked for a short period of about 20 years.
Olga Sugrobova-Roth is a specialist in Russian art.
19th century paintings
Thursday 20 October 2016, 5 pm
Palais Dorotheum Vienna
Above image:
Piotr Tutukin
Perspective of the Saint Alexander Nevsky palace church
at the Anichkov Palace in St. Petersburg, 1850
oil on canvas on plywood, 120 cm x 128 cm
estimate € 30,000 – €40,000
19th century paintings auction, 20 October 2016