**Fiodor Mikhaïlovitch MATVEEV (Saint-Pétersbourg,... Lot n° 29

Italian landscape (circa 1780). Oil on canvas, trace of signature lower right in red and signed on the back in Latin . Framed. H. 47.5 x L.70 cm. Provenance - Private collection, Geneva. - Acquired by the previous owner in 2012. - Christie's London sale, November 30, 2015, lot no. 47 (the pair sold for €88,738). - Private collection. Note Our painting originally formed a counterpart to another canvas of the same format, also depicting a view of an Italian landscape (illustration 1). History The brilliant and rare landscape painter Fyodor Matveev is considered one of the pioneers of the Russian landscape school. Born into a military family, Matveev studied at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg under Semion Shchedrin (1744-1804). After winning the first-class gold medal, he was awarded a scholarship to Italy in 1779. Settled in Rome, he never returned to Russia. Awarded the title of Academician for his work "Vue de Naples depuis le pied du Posillipo" in 1806, he joined the Academia di San Luca in 1813. Major works by Matveev are rare on the market, and since the 1980s there have been around twenty, the vast majority of which are held by the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and a number of private collections. This delicate Italian landscape originally formed a pair with another Italian landscape. The last major exhibition devoted to the artist was in 2008, brilliantly orchestrated by Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery. This exhibition recalled Matveev's decisive influence on artists who marked the next generation, including Isaak Levitan (1860-1900), Alexei Savrasov (1830-1897) and Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900). Following in the footsteps of classicism and drawing his inspiration from the work of Claude Lorrain, Matveev took to heart the depiction of idealized landscapes, featuring the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, the waterfalls of Tivoli, Lake Maggiore, the outskirts of Naples and even the ancient monuments of Sicily, bathed in the warm, suave light of Italy. Lot is sold under temporary importation regime