The high relief Jewish Tailor is Mark Antokolsky’s first independent work, created during his studies at the St Petersburg Academy of Arts. It differs from traditional academic sculpture in its unique subject matter and the unusual composition of the high relief, where the half-figure of the tailor, cut from palm-tree wood, is framed by a window. The sculptor succeeded in capturing the expressive and characteristic gesture of the tailor’s hands, and accurately conveyed his facial expression. One of the first to highly regard this work was the famous art critic Vladimir Stasov. In 1864, Jewish Tailor was shown at an exhibition at the Academy of Arts, earning the sculptor a Silver Medal Award.

Antokolsky Mark

Antokolsky, Mark Matveevich
1842, Vilna — 1902, Bad Homburg (Germany)

The sculptor Mark Antokolsky moved to St Petersburg in 1862, where he studied under Nikolai Pimenov and Johann Reymers at the Imperial Academy of Arts. In 1871 he started work on his sculpture of Ivan the Terrible (plaster, Kensington Museum, London). During the early 1870s he lived in Italy, before moving to France in 1877, although he visited Russia every year. Antokolsky was awarded a gold medal and Légion d’honneur at the Exposition Universelle, Paris in 1878 and was later made a professor, then full member of the Imperial Academy of Arts, where he held solo exhibitions in 1880 and 1893. He was also an honorary member of Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Akademie der Künste in Berlin and Accademia di Belle Arti in Urbino.