This oil, “Birch Grove” by Arkhip Kuindhzi, a landscape artist from Ukraine, was painted in 1881 for a Russian mining industrialist who didn’t pay for it. The painter subsequently sold it to Fedor Tereschenko, the Ukraine sugar magnate, for seven thousand rubles. His wife sent it to her Cannes home so that she would be reminded of her homeland while wintering on the Mediterranean. In the late 1920s she moved along with her daughter Nadehzda to Bursinel, Vaud in Switzerland. They named the home Springland II after their home in Cannes they had also called Springland. The painting stood nearly 7 feet high including its framing and so was hung on the wall of the staircase between the first and second floors. The portrait of Vladimir Mouravieff-Apostol-Korobyine being of similar size occupied the staircase wall between the ground and first floor landing. Nadehzda bequeathed the painting to her granson, Michael, in 1967 and after it was refurbished in Geneva, it arrived in New York and hung on the wall of Michael’s various residences until being sold in 2008 at the Sotheby’s Russian Art Auction on 15 April 2008
m buckner 