Eugene Lanceray

EUGENI ALEXANDROVICH LANCERAY (Russia,1848-1886).
"Bear".
Blued iron.
Presents inscription.
It has a foundry seal.
Measurements: 56 x 68 x 27 cm.
Animal sculpture representing a bear standing realistically represented with its front paws fallen hanging on branches and stumps of broken trees. The piece has a plaque that reads "Killed by the Emperor near Lisina on March 9, 1865". The work is based on a model by the sculptor Nikolai Lieberich (Russia, 1828-1883). In 1865-1866, Lieberich was invited to participate in the imperial hunt, which provided him with a valuable source of observation and inspiration for his work. A bear killed by Emperor Alexander II during a hunt in Lisino became the prototype for this popular model, executed in 1866.

Eugene Lanceray, was a Russian graphic artist, painter, sculptor, mosaicist and illustrator, stylistically associated with Mir iskusstva. He came from a prominent Russian artistic family of French origin. The artist spent his childhood in Ukraine, on a small estate of his father Neskuchnoe. After the death of Eugene Lanceray, the artist's father, the mother moved with her children to St. Petersburg, to her father's house, known in artistic circles as "the Benois house near Nikola Morskoy". Lanceray took his first lessons at the Drawing School of the Imperial Society for the Promotion of the Arts in St. Petersburg from 1892 to 1896. He then traveled to Paris, where he continued his studies at the Académie Colarossi and the Académie Julian from 1896 to 1899. After returning from France to Russia, Lanceray joined Mir iskusstva, an influential Russian art movement inspired by an art magazine of the same name, founded in 1899, in St. Petersburg. Like other members of Mir iskusstva, he was fascinated with Rococo art and often turned to 18th-century Russian history and art for inspiration. His creative method and aesthetic views evolved under the influence and guidance of Benois, although, in some aspects of his talent, Lanceray may have surpassed his master. Lanceray was the only prominent member of Mir iskusstva to remain in Russia after the Revolution of 1917. Lanceray left Georgia in 1934 and settled in Moscow, where he was engaged in the decoration of the Moscow Kazansky railway station and the Moskva Hotel. In 1920, he moved to Tbilisi, Georgia. While in Georgia, he lectured at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts (1922-1934) and illustrated Leo Tolstoy's short Caucasian novels.
Lanceray left St. Petersburg in 1917 and spent three years living in Dagestan,
During the same period, Lanceray also worked as a theatrical designer.