Anna Razumovskaya | Romantic Figurative painter

Anna Razumovskaya /Анна Разумовская🎨 is a graduate of the Russian State University For Arts, where she was awarded🎨 the distinction of high-class artist in 1991. Subsequently, she studied art in Germany, Belgium and Holland.

With exhibitions in New York, Paris, Toronto, Amsterdam, Antwerp and Berlin and numerous works in private collections across the globe, she has become one of the most exciting and collectable artists on the contemporare scene.

Born at the height of the cold war, Anna was exposed to very different worlds, that of the austere communist regime alongside the sophistication and femininity of her fashion-conscious mother. She excelled at art school, and enjoyed the freedom of learning and perfecting her technique in a variety of different media.

Ulisse Caputo | Genre painter of the Belle Époque

Ulisse Caputo | An evening at the opera | Christie's

In the present painting "An evening at the opera" the viewer is placed directly in the stalls of the theatre, taking in the movement of the orchestra, the drama at the centre-stage, and the frisson of the swordfight in the upstage right, all under the backdrop of a clear crisp night sky.

The colourful scene is characterized by quick and rich brushstrokes, emphasising the movement of the depiction.

Music and theatre can be considered familiar passions as the artist’s father was a set designer and administrator of the Teatro Verdi in Salerno and this probably influenced the artist in his love for the subjects.

Ulisse Caputo | An evening at the opera | Christie's

Jakub Schikaneder | Impressionistic nocturnes

Jakub Schikaneder (1855-1924) came from the family of a German customs office clerk.

Despite the family's poor background, he was able to pursue his studies, thanks in part to his family's love of art; an ancestor was Urban Schikaneder, the elder brother of the librettist Emanuel Schikaneder.

After having completed his studies in Prague and Munich 1871-1879, Schikaneder, alongside Emanuel Krescenc Liška, was involved in the furnishing of the royal box in the National Theatre in Prague; however, this work was lost in a fire in 1881.

Émile Lecomte-Vernet | Orientalist painter

Émile Vernet-Lecomte, born Charles Émile Hippolyte Lecomte (1821-1900) was a French painter, best known for his Orientalist works.

He came from a family of illustrious painters.

His great-grandfather was Claude Joseph Vernet and his father was the battle painter, Hippolyte Lecomte; who was himself the son-in-law of Carle Vernet, and the nephew of Horace Vernet.

Odilon Redon (1840-1916) | Still Lifes

Odilon Redon🎨's work represent an exploration of his internal feelings and psyche.

He himself wanted to "place the visible at the service of the invisible"; thus, although his work seems filled with strange beings and grotesque dichotomies, his aim was to represent pictorially the ghosts of his own mind. Redon🎨 also describes his work as ambiguous and undefinable:

"My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined".