Yuli Yulievich Klever and Studio

By the mid-1890s, when the present work was painted, Yuli Klever could already look back at a tremendously successful career, and his paintings adorned the walls of many an aristocratic mansion and grand apartment in St Petersburg. Of Baltic German origin, he had arrived in the Russian capital in the late 1860s from Derpt (present-day Tartu in Estonia), to enrol at the Imperial Academy of Arts. Although he never graduated, he established himself as one of the leading painters of his generation.

Apart from being a talented painter, Klever was also a savvy businessman and entrepreneur, and he saw a meteoritic rise to fame in the 1870s. Key to this were the solo exhibitions he organised himself, creating an alternative platform for promoting his work. Soon, his romantic views of forests, winter landscapes and sunsets became popular among the Russian aristocracy and members of the Imperial family. Acquiring paintings for their collections, they also paved the way for Klever’s commercial success. At first dismissed as a salon painter by critics and the art establishment, critical success and recognition soon followed. In 1880, Pavel Tretyakov, the great collector and connoisseur of Russian art, acquired a painting for his collection. The following year, Klever was named professor by the Academy of Arts. During the 1880s, he exhibited internationally, and Tsar Alexander III became a particularly enthusiastic and important patron. In order to fulfil the many commission he received, Klever employed assistants in his large studio.