- 574
Red Army Man or Partisan On The March, State Porcelain Manufactory, Petrograd, 1919
Estimate
18,000 - 30,000 GBP
bidding is closed
Description
- porcelain
- height 20.8 cm, 8 1/8 in.
after a 1919 design by Natalia Danko, green factory mark dated 1919
Exhibited
Pushkin Museum, no. 25
Literature
Oda k Radosti/Ode to Joy, p. 95, no. 55; for comparison, see Nosovich and Popova, p. 345 and N. Lobanov-Rostovsky, Revolutionary Ceramics: Soviet Porcelain 1917-1927, London, 1990, cat. no. 98, p. 97.
Condition
Two thin repaired cracks, each roughly 1cm long, to the reverse of the figure's right leg. The rifle barrel covered with a masking glaze, the butt reattached with traces of adhesive visible under UV light. Some scattered inherent firing flaws and small scattered glaze losses.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
Catalogue Note
The figure’s original title of Red Army Man (Krasnoarmeets), the date 1919 on the base and the references to winter in the sheepskin coat and snowy ground suggest that this work was intended to recall the momentous events of October 1919.
In this desperate period of the Civil War, the Bolshevik government faced great difficulty in equipping their new conscripts, and most were forced to wear their own sheepskin coats and felt boots. Russian Museum curator Mstislav Farmakovsky, writing about this figure in 1924, remembered having seen such young men thousands of times in Petrograd in 1919: ‘…he invariably goes on in his shambling gait from one victory to the next; he is beaten, but he rises again; he is chased away, but returns to surround his enemy. All of Europe is against him – but he survives nevertheless; he is the Russian working people with all their immeasurable endurance; he is the source of our power, our durability, and he is the guarantor of our existence’ (M.V. Farmakovskii, ‘Skulptura gosudarstvennogo zavoda,’ in Russkii khudozhestvennyi farfor, Leningrad, 1924, p. 107).
Throughout the 1920s, sources refer to this figure as Red Army Man, but beginning in the early 1930s the figure began to be identified as Partisan on the March. This renaming and identification of the figure as a peasant partisan suggests a different, perhaps more heroic, history. Rural peasant partisan fighters conducted guerrilla warfare against the occupying German and Austrian forces as well as the White Armies. For later observers, these partisans represented the natural and communal response of society to the absolute breakdown of authority. Partisan fighters in these situations chose to elect their commanders and maintained egalitarian relations by using the familiar form of address. As such, the figure of the partisan was representative of the grass roots of the Soviet ideology.
In this desperate period of the Civil War, the Bolshevik government faced great difficulty in equipping their new conscripts, and most were forced to wear their own sheepskin coats and felt boots. Russian Museum curator Mstislav Farmakovsky, writing about this figure in 1924, remembered having seen such young men thousands of times in Petrograd in 1919: ‘…he invariably goes on in his shambling gait from one victory to the next; he is beaten, but he rises again; he is chased away, but returns to surround his enemy. All of Europe is against him – but he survives nevertheless; he is the Russian working people with all their immeasurable endurance; he is the source of our power, our durability, and he is the guarantor of our existence’ (M.V. Farmakovskii, ‘Skulptura gosudarstvennogo zavoda,’ in Russkii khudozhestvennyi farfor, Leningrad, 1924, p. 107).
Throughout the 1920s, sources refer to this figure as Red Army Man, but beginning in the early 1930s the figure began to be identified as Partisan on the March. This renaming and identification of the figure as a peasant partisan suggests a different, perhaps more heroic, history. Rural peasant partisan fighters conducted guerrilla warfare against the occupying German and Austrian forces as well as the White Armies. For later observers, these partisans represented the natural and communal response of society to the absolute breakdown of authority. Partisan fighters in these situations chose to elect their commanders and maintained egalitarian relations by using the familiar form of address. As such, the figure of the partisan was representative of the grass roots of the Soviet ideology.