Petr Petrovich SOKOLOV (1821-1899).

Chestnut Horse in the Meadow (1881). Oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right in Russian. In a beautiful gilded wood frame. H. 33 x W. 30 cm. Provenance French private collection since the 1980s. Notes "I decided to turn to the best teacher - nature" wrote Petr Sokolov in the 1840s. A student at the Academy of Fine Arts, he quickly left behind ancient history and mythology to devote his entire oeuvre to hunting scenes, horses and dogs, and frantic chases in the steppes of deepest Russia, where the social misery that reigned there was a source of inspiration for the artist. An excellent animal painter, Sokolov shows great virtuosity in the representation of horses that he likes to depict far from the canons of the romantic horse. He offers us here a perfectly realistic vision of a horse from the countryside, probably a field worker because of its stocky build, and which seems quite aware of its condition. Without any posture artifice, Sokolov delivers a superb equine portrait where the lateral light completes the shining of the chestnut coat of the subject.