Ivan Konstantinovitch AÏVAZOVSKY (1817-1900) Lot n° 34

Sailboat in the moonlight. Oil on paper mounted on canvas, signed lower right in red Cyrillic. In its beautiful gilded wood frame. H. 27.2 x W. 38 cm. H. 47 x W. 58 cm (frame). Provenance - Paul Heinrich Naef Von Meinhardt Collection (Moscow, 1854 - Zurich, 1921). - His son, Paul Alexandre Naef (Moscow, 1901 - Geneva, 1994). - Then by descent. Related work An oil on canvas similar to ours, entitled "Night on the Black Sea", dating from 1879 (58.5 x 69.5 cm), is in the Odessa Museum of Art. History Dostoyevsky called Aïvazovsky "a master without equal", and this nocturnal marine is a perfect illustration of this, as he is one of the few painters to have captured the moon's rays reflected in the sea's nuances with such verisimilitude and brilliance. Moonlit marine scenes form an important part of the artist's body of work, depicting peaceful scenes illuminated by an almost always perfect moon. One of the most striking examples is "The Bay of Naples in the Moonlight" from 1842, preserved in the Aïvazovsky National Art Gallery in Theodosia. Enlivened by small figures, canoes and distant sailing ships whose sails are all we can make out, Ivan Aïvazovsky delivers this view of a calmer sea, far removed from the furious waves and raging swell of the oceans. Paul Heinrich Naef Von Meinhardt (Moscow, 1854 - Zurich, 1921) This work was acquired by Paul Heinrich Naef Von Meinhardt, born in Moscow in 1854, son of Paul Heinrich Naef, who arrived in Moscow in 1847 as a young pastor of the Swiss Reformed Church. The first representative in Russia of English textile manufacturers, he founded his own company and married Sophie Von Meinhardt in 1884. He was also a shareholder and director of numerous Moscow companies, enabling him to develop close ties with Zurich's Kreditanstalt (Credit Suisse). They had five children, including Paul Alexandre Naef, born in Moscow in 1901, where he studied until 1918, living in a mansion in Moscow's Lialine alley. During the revolution, their entire fortune and possessions were confiscated by the Bolsheviks, and the Naef family was repatriated to Switzerland in 1920 by a Red Cross convoy. Upon his arrival in Switzerland, Paul Alexandre Naef was admitted to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, from which he graduated as an engineer before becoming an assistant to Professor Ten Bosch. In 1928, he was sent to Berlin as chief engineer of the Escher Wyss company, and in 1939, he moved to Vevey to take over general management of the mechanical engineering workshops in a factory producing turbines and tractors. Chosen by his father, this painting by Ivan Aïvazovski, acquired in Russia, was able to cross borders and remain in the same family to this day.