Bidspirit auction | ZELENSKI, ARNOLD (1812-1886)

ZELENSKI, ARNOLD (1812-1886) - * Wet Nurse with a Child , signed and dated 1865. Oil on canvas, 54.5 by 72 cm. Provenance: Galerie Gorky Basmadjian, Paris. Private collection, USA. Arnold Zelenski was born into a merchant family in Poltava, then part of the Russian Empire and now in Ukraine. He trained in Europe and St Petersburg; in 1849 he became an Academician of historical and portrait painting at the Russian Academy of Arts.Zelenski’s work was regularly exhibited during his lifetime both in Russia and abroad. Two of his works, including one titled Wet Nurse - in Russian costume, was included at the Eighty-Fourth Exhibition of the Royal Academy in London in 1852. The subject of wet nurse with a child or motherhood appears to have been a recurring theme in Zelenski’s oeuvre. The present lot is dated 1865 and an earlier version of this composition is in the collection of Rybinsk State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum Preserve.