dated 1920, probably executed in the 1940s
oil on canvas
48.5 x 69 cm (19 x 27 1/8 in.)
signed and dated lower right

PROVENANCE
Collection of Arnold Chikoba, prominent Georgian linguist and scientist
Private Collection, Georgia (acquired from the above)
Sotheby s, London, June 8, 2009, Russian Art Evening Sale, Lot 21

EXPERTISE
Notarized certificates from Irina Dzutsova, dated February 24, and May 29, 2009 (available upon request).

LOT NOTES
According to the notarized certificate from Dr. Dzutsova, in addition to reasons of stylistic analysis, she confirms the authorship of this painting as Lado Gudiashvili mentioned this work to her several times during her studying and conducting research on his art. In addition, she had seen the painting on numerous occasions at Dr. Chikobava's residence during her visits there in the 1960s. A copy of a scientific examination and pigment analysis report from Art Access & Research, London, suggesting a terminus ante of the painting's execution of at least 1940, is also available upon request.

In 1920, while Lado Gudiashvili was living in Paris, the inescapable center of the art world in the early decades of the 20th century, he continued to focus on Georgian subjects, prompting one of the reviewers of the exhibition at the Salon d Automne to proclaim: "The Georgian... has studied in Paris and is familiar with all our artistic movements as he is with all our recipes, but he still remains completely Georgian (L Echo de Boulevard, February 11, 1925, as quoted in M. Kagan & L. Zlatkevich, Lado Gudiashvili, (Leningrad: Aurora Art Publishers, 1984). The present work, Dreamers of Ortachala, while dated and inscribed Paris 1920 is believed to have been executed by the artist decades later, in the 1940s, based on a sketch of the subject from 1920. As in the original drawing, reproduced here, the composition is suffused with the echoing, elongated curves widely believed to have been used most eloquently during Gudiashvili s Parisian period. While much of the composition in the painting presents an embellishment of the earlier sketch, the artist diverges in his presentation of the victuals. Whereas previously the fish was depicted in a quasi-surrealistic manner, supported by the rolling hills as if by waves, in Dreamers of Ortachala Gudiashvili repeats an element he used in Tsotskhali Fish, a painting from the same year (now at the Shalva Amiranashvili Museum of Fine Arts in, Tbilisi), presenting the fish on a round platter head-to-tail, mimicking the placement of the kinto, or the romantic Georgian bohemians one frequently finds in the artist s paintings during his time in Paris.