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• The Arrival Of Columbus' Flotilla

• Ivan Aivazovsky

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• 1880
  Oil on canvas
  50 x 72 in. (127 x 183 cm)
  Private American Collection.
  
  Ivan Aivazovsky traveled to the United States in the fall of 1892. Prior to his departure, he expressed his desire to revisit the Atlantic Ocean to a reporter for Russkii Vestnik, stating, "My main purpose for this journey is to see the ocean once more and to renew my impressions of the journey taken in the 1840s. I am fond of those impressions, of those sceneries with limitless water. One looks at the often changing views, feels a calmness and a strong desire to capture everything...everything in order to reproduce them on canvas" (as quoted in Shahen Khachaturian, Aivazovsky in America, p. 18).
  
  He officially journeyed to America to represent Russian artists at the World's Columbian Exposition (World's Fair) in Chicago in 1893, where an astounding twenty of his paintings were sent for exhibition. He was also drawn to the fabled natural wonders that might be found across the Atlantic. He was particularly inspired by the majestic Niagara Falls, which he later painted in large scale. His sketchbook from his American sojourn is preserved in the archives of Theodosia's art gallery; it is filled primarily with views of Niagara Falls and the Atlantic Ocean.
  
  Before embarking on his trip to America in 1892, Aivazovsky carefully planned the works he wished to exhibit at the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893. Years earlier, he had begun a massive series of canvases depicting the life of Christopher Columbus and his discovery of America in 1492. Sailing on behalf of Spain, Columbus, the great explorer, had journeyed across the Atlantic with a famous trio of ships—the Ni?a, Pinta and Santa Maria. In the early morning hours on October 12, 1492, they arrived to the island now known as San Salvador. When setting out to paint this immense historical series, Aivazovsky considered the fact that the four hundred year anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America was at hand, and he may well have wished to send these paintings to Chicago because he knew they would resonate with American viewers. In the summer of 1892, Aivazovsky sent the twenty paintings to the Fine Arts Academy in St. Petersburg so that fifteen would be chosen for the major Chicago exhibition, and the newspaper Novoye Vremya of 1892 noted that Aivazovsky's participation in the Chicago exposition assured Russia's success.
  
  As M.S. Sargisian noted in his article "Ayvasovski in America", the archives of the federal gallery in Theodosia named after Aivazovsky has preserved a handwritten list by the artist, dated July 10, 1892, which lists the twenty paintings that Aivazovsky intended to send to the Chicago exposition. Among them, five paintings devoted to the Columbus theme were included, and the present lot was listed as number 2, Columbus, encircled by his retinue, disembarks at the shore in San Salvador Island, and it was originally "nine arshin wide by seven arshin long" (approximately 5 by 6 meters) including frame. At the World's Fair, the painting was better known as The Arrival of Columbus' Flotilla, and in N.P. Sobko's listing of paintings by Aivazovsky compiled in 1893 it was titled The Disembarkation of Christopher Columbus, with Companions on Three Launches, on Friday 12th October 1492, at Sunrise, on an American Island named San Salvador by him on the very same Day. Sobko too referred to the painting's great size—listed as more than seven arshins long and about five high—and he noted that they were painted in 1880 after sketches done by the artist in Genoa, Florence and Venice. The work was later renamed again, to Columbus in America, for exhibition at the Hovnanian Armenian School in New Jersey. It had been rediscovered just before this exhibition, and its true origins and historical significance remained unknown until recently.
  
  Aivazovsky and his wife traveled extensively throughout America from 1892-93, though weariness and business affairs in St. Petersburg precluded the couple from actually visiting the World's Fair. The present lot is a rediscovered segment from the immense masterpiece they left behind, which was later cut down into at least two smaller paintings—the other being The Disembarkation of Christopher Columbus, sold at Sotheby's New York in April 2006. In The Arrival of Columbus' Flotilla, the artist captures with drama and majesty the arrival of the Ni?a, Pinta and Santa Maria to American shores. Aivazovsky's palette captures the early morning light with stunning effect, softly and slowly illuminating the composition, as if bringing the scene to life before the viewer's eyes. In this way, this masterpiece creates an eloquent metaphor of a world in its first moment of discovery, untarnished, a future without limits.

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Other paintings by Ivan Aivazovsky:

Tempest. Sunset

The Acropolis of Athens

The Baptism of Armenians

The Battle of Navarino