Title: 'Reclining Male Nude with Dog' 1938

Artist: after Konstantin Somov (1869-1939)
aka Constantine Somoff.

Medium: Oil on canvas.   

Measurements: 41 x 51 cm ("16 x 20")
Framed 55 x 65 cm (22" x 26" approx)

Inscription: 'K. Somov 1938'

Description: This late style work depicts a nude young man reclining on a bed in front of a cosy glowing coal fire with a small dog at his feet. Appears to be painted after prominent Russian artist Konstantin Somov. The beauty of the male figure and wholesome gentle erotic mood of this work is quite wonderful. We believe this to be a later twentieth century version (or copy), this version is taller. 

(see Christies: SALE 7537 'The Somov Collection' London 28 November 2007, Lot 233. Realised: GBP 84,500. See Christie's website.)

Condition: Excellent. The surface of the painting has been cleaned and revarnished. Canvas shows a very slight vertical seam or cut down the middle.

Frame: PLEASE NOTE, Antique Louis XV rococo style frame, genuinely  very old late 18th or early 19th century composite. it has numerous minor repairs and restorations, re-gilding etc, but is structurally sound and safe for transport. Frame is very heavy and adds considerably to the shipping costs. Can be excluded.

Konstantin Andreyevich Somov (Russian: Константин Андреевич Сомов, November 30, 1869 – May 6, 1939) was a Russian artist associated with the Mir iskusstva. Born into a family of a major art historian and Hermitage Museum curator Andrey Ivanovich Somov, he became interested in 18th-century art and music at an early age. Somov studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts under Ilya Repin from 1888 to 1897. While at the Academy, he befriended Alexandre Benois, who would introduce him to Sergei Diaghilev and Léon Bakst. When the three founded the World of Art, Somov liberally contributed to its periodicals. Somov was homosexual, like many of the World of Art members.

Inspired by Watteau and Fragonard, he preferred to work with watercolours and gouache. For three years he worked upon his masterpiece, Lady in Blue, painted in the manner of 18th-century portraitists. During the 1910s, Somov executed a number of rococo harlequin scenes and illustrations to the poems by Alexander Blok. Many of his works were exhibited abroad, especially in Germany, where the first monograph on him was published in 1909.

Following the Russian Revolution, he emigrated to the United States, but found the country "absolutely alien to his art" and moved to Paris. He was buried at the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Cemetery. On June 14, 2007, Somov's landscape "The Rainbow" (1927) was sold at Christie's for US$7.33 million, a record for a work at an auction of Russian art. –Wikipedia