Author: Korovin, K. A. (1861-1932)

 

Title: At the Tea-Table

 

Date: 1888

 

Media: Oil on canvas

 

Size:  48,5 х 60,5 cm

 

Provenance: The Museum Estate of V.D.Polenov, Tula Region, Russia

 

Accession number:

Subject: Korovin - Outdoor tea-drinking – Social gathering - Samovar- Group portrait -Gentry - Still life - Impressionism

 

 

 

 

Afternoon tea of close friends at dacha of the artist V.D. Polenov. It is a widespread tradition of having tea at a terrace of a country house during a summer time. The painting conveys warmth of friendship, poetry of sensible human being, modest steady private life full of intellectual interests, and harmony of everyday being. Still life on the table with the samovar in the center creates a sense of unity. The samovar sparkles with greenish and golden reflections and determines emotional atmosphere of the moment.

 

 

 

Все в прошлом

   Author: Maksimov, V.M. (1844 – 1911)

 

   Title: All in the past

 

   Date: 1889

 

   Media: Oil on canvas

 

   Size: 72 x 93 cm

 

   Provenance: Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

 

   Accession number:

 

   Subject: Maksimov - Outdoor tea-drinking – Samovar- Portrait – Landscape - Realism

 

 

 

 

This is the world of broken nobility. The feeble old proprietress of the beautiful house remembers happy fays. She forgot about evening tea served on the tea table. The gilded cups and plates, rich table appointments make a contrast with the ramshackle nest of the gentry. Her companion, an old peasant woman whiles away the time near her barunya and continues to provide tea drinking ritual. An expensive samovar is a remainder of former affluence. It symbolizes glimmering life and yet the order of the life.

 

 

 

    Author: Kustodiev, B.K. (1878-1927)

 

    Title: The Merchant’s wife on the Balcony   

 

    Date: 1918

 

    Media: Oil on canvas

 

    Size: 120 x 120 cm

 

   Provenance: The State Russian Museum, St.-Petersburg, Russia

 

   Accession number:

 

   Subject: Kustodiev - Outdoor tea-drinking – Samovar- Merchant - Portrait - Still lifeLandscape - Folk painting

 

 

 

 

 

Peace and comfort are associated with Russian tea-drinking ceremony. Expensive samovar, a teapot of highly glazed pottery, painted with gold, the same kind of cup, the table appointments, - everything says, that on the picture is a wealthy woman. She is beautiful, pink-cheeked, and stout. She drinks tea in a merchants’ style – from the saucer. Insouciance and peace of tea-drinking time are emphasized with blue sky behind the terrace. Nothing implies that it is time of Revolution with its stormy events.

 

 

Tea Drinking in Mytishchi, Near Moscow, 1862 Giclee Print

 

     Author:  Perov, V.G. (1833(1833)–1882(1882))

 

      Title: Tea-Drinking in Mytishchi, Near Moscow

 

      Date: 1862

 

      Media: Oil on canvas

 

      Size: 43,5 х 37,3 cm

 

      Provenance: Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

 

      Accession number: #32522

 

      Subject: Perov - Outdoor tea-drinking – Samovar- ParsonGroup portraitGenre paintingRealism – “Peredvizhniki”

 

 

 

It was a custom for wealthy worshippers on pilgrimage from Moscow to the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery to stop for tea in the village of Mytishchi, famed for its water. Perov portrays an incapacitated veteran of the Sevastopol campaign who, wearing the Order of St. George, must beg for charity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  (699x494, 48Kb) Author:  Korzukhin, A.I. (1835-1894)

 

   Title:      Sunday

 

   Date:     1884

 

   Media:   Oil on canvas

 

   Size:      1884

 

   Provenance: Kharkov Museum of Fine Arts, Kharkov, Ukraine

 

   Accession number:

  Subject:  Korzukhin - Outdoor tea-drinking –    Social gathering - Samovar- Landscape - Realism

               

 

 

 

Outdoor leisure time never was spent without tea-drinking. For picnic in the spring or in the summer townsfolk took samovars in suburban parks. A table-cloth was spread out on a grass, a simple food was pulled out from baskets, and samovar was set up on the special pedestal.

 

 

 

 (603x699, 109Kb)

   Author:  Kustodiev, B.K. (1878-1927)

 

   Title:      At the Terrace (Group Portrait of the Artist’s Family)

 

   Date:     1906

 

   Media: Oil on canvas

 

   Size:    175 x 200

 

   Provenance: The State Museum of Fine Arts, Nizhniy  Novgorod, Russia

 

   Accession number:

 

   Subject:  Kustodiev - Outdoor tea-drinking – Family -      Samovar- GentryGroup portrait Impressionism

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A deep traditional feature of Russian tea-drinking is that that it always served to the goal of a family reunion, when all members - old and young - gathered around the samovar. Thus, Russian tea ceremony helped to strengthen the family relationships, to find mutual understanding between different generations. At the tea table the family gets imbued with atmosphere of peace and love. B.Kustodiev wrote, “One says that Russian way of life had died… It’s rubbish! Life cannot be killed, because life is a human being.”