Vera Moukhina

The powerful magnum Chateau La Grace Dieu des Prieurs, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru 2018 by Art Russe is impressive not only in size. Its label features an artwork from the collection of the Art Russe Foundation, remarkable both for its artistic merit and for the history of its creation. A slender figure of a girl, the flowing folds of the dress, the many braids, the confident step, and a seemingly weightless jug on the shoulder: this is ‘Uzbek Girl / Uzbek Girl with a Jug’ (1933, bronze, 50 cm). The sculpture seems completely self-contained, recalling the classic figures of the Caryatids at the Erechtheion in Athens, or the Danaids at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. However, according to the idea of ​​its creator, the famous Soviet sculptor Vera Mukhina (1889-1953), the artist behind the legendary monumental sculpture ‘Worker and Kolkhoz Woman’, ‘Uzbek Girl’ was originally intended to become part of the sculptural decoration of an important architectural project in Moscow.

What stands there now (at the beginning of Gogolevski Boulevard) is the Kropotkinskaya metro station pavilion. Back in 1933, however, according to Vera Mukhina’s project, the ‘Fountain of Nations’ with cascades of falling water and four sculptures personifying the peoples of the USSR was supposed to emerge on the site. The fountain was never built, and the only material evidence of the existence of the project that could have changed the appearance of Moscow is the bronze figure of an Uzbek girl, made by Mukhina in a 50-centimeter version. Part of the collection of the Art Russe Foundation, this sculpture served as a model for the work exhibited in the Tretyakov Gallery, one of the best examples of Mukhina’s sculpture.