CHARLES COTTET. 1863-1925

143 TOILERS OF THE SEA. 1897

Oil on cardboard. 54 X 64 cm. Inv. No 3445 Signed and dated lower left: Ch. Cottet. 97 This scene with two figures is reproduced by Cottet, though in a slightly altered form, in the central panel of his triptych The World of the Sea (Musee national d'art moderne, Paris). The Pushkin Museum picture has long been considered a sketch for the central part of the triptych, but the completeness of its compositional and artistic solution, a more detailed delineation of the figures (compared to the triptych), and an entirely different rendering of the still life, combined with the author's signature and date,

allow us to regard the canvas as a work of art in its own right. A variant of the triptych is in the Padua Museum. The triptych The World of the Sea was exhibited in the 1898 Salon in Paris (No 311). Provenance: until 1910 The M. Morozov Colbction, Moscow; 1910—25 The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; 1925—48 The Museum of Modern Western Art, Moscow; since 1948 The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

Exhibition: 1960 Moscow, Cat., p. 22 Bibliography: Кат. галереи Третьяковых 1911, No 108; Кат. галереи Третьяковых 1917, No 3950; Кат. ГМНЗИ 1928, No 218; Reau 1929, No 759

143 TOILERS OF THE SEA. 1897