And the last painting for the moment as I’m conscious that this blog is still in Batumi and I’m Prague ready to come back to the UK, so it’s not what might be called live blogging…..
Anyway, this is another artwork by Richard Sommer (1866-1939) who I’ve already mentioned went missing at the outbreak of the Second World War. The city of Samarkand, in Uzbekistan, seems interesting because of its long history, although I suspect it’s going to be a while before I get to visit it.
The element that I was most interested in here is that AI mentioned it thought that this was likely purchased by a wealthy member of the Russian nobility. This was apparently a time, just before the First World War, when Russian nobles were running this area of the world and they wanted an artistic depiction of the cities that they were governing. I’ve never really thought of the Russian elite being sent to this region, in the same way as the British sent their elites to India, but I’m attracted to the thought that this painting was a link to that.
Perhaps the frame was an addition to that feeling of decadence and ostentation, a period of time when Russia felt its international strength growing. I am perhaps overthinking these things, but I like distractions….