Sudeikin discovered porcelain almost simultaneous with motifs of fête galante. Fragile and elegant, for the artist (and many of his contemporaries), porcelain was a living echo of a bygone era, the embodiment of the idea of the fragility of beauty. Like in his retrospective genre works, the artist created an atmosphere saturated with romanticism, compelling him to bring to life tiny, gently shimmering figures of rocaille ladies and gentlemen, comparing them to the elegant and seemingly subtly scented bouquets in vases and vials against the background of a mysteriously glimmering mirror, reflecting infinity.

Sudeikin Sergei

Sudeikin, Sergei Yurievich
1882, St Petersburg —1946, New York
Painter, graphic artist, theatrical designer; landscapist, author of symbolic compositions and still lifes, portraitist. Studied under Konstantin Korovin at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1897–1909) and under Dmitry Kardovsky at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1909–1910). Member of the World of Art society. Contributed to the exhibitions of the Scarlet Rose (1904), Moscow Fellowship of Artists (1905), Union of Russian Artists (1905, 1907–1909), Blue Rose (1907), Salon d’Automne (1907), Stephanos (1907–1908), Sergei Makovsky Salon (1909), World of Art (1911–1917, 1921), Russian Landscapes (1918–1919), Exhibitions of Russian Art in Paris (1906, 1910), Berlin (1906), Vienna (1908), New York and Pittsburgh (1924). Designed for theatres in Moscow and Petersburg (from the late 1890s), books and magazines (from the early 1900s). Lived in Tbilisi (1919), Paris (from 1920) and New York (from 1922). Prominent symbolist artist of the 1900s – 1910s.