Mikhail Clodt von Jürgensburg

Mikhail Clodt von Jürgensburg was born on 30 December 1832 in Saint Petersburg. He first learned drawing at the Saint Petersburg Mining Cadet Corps before entering the Imperial Academy of Arts, where he studied painting from 1851 to 1858. His studies there earned him the Academy's Large Gold Medal in 1858, along with a three-year scholarship to study painting abroad in France, Switzerland, and Italy. He used the scholarship for only about a year, finding Western landscape traditions less compelling than the Russian school, then returned home and obtained permission to spend the remaining funds traveling and painting across Russia instead.

Clodt built his reputation through a series of landscapes: Highway in Autumn (1863) brought him early recognition, followed by In the Field (1872) and Forest View in Midday (1878), which drew still stronger praise. He became a founding member of the Peredvizhniki, exhibiting alongside the movement's traveling shows through the 1870s. His 1879 painting Cows at Watering drew criticism from the influential critic Vladimir Stasov, who is reported by later biographical sources to have criticized a tendency toward excessive naturalism in some of Clodt's work; the exact wording and original publication of that remark could not be independently confirmed. After a dispute within the group over criticism of fellow painter Arkhip Kuindzhi, Clodt broke with the Peredvizhniki and subsequently retired from the Imperial Academy as well.

In his final years he lost most of his eyesight and faced financial hardship. Wikipedia and other secondary sources describe him as half-blind and financially ruined at the time of his death in 1902.

He died on 16 May 1902 in the Julian calendar then in use in Russia (29 May 1902 in the Gregorian calendar), in Saint Petersburg.

Clodt is recognized in Russian art history chiefly through his role in the Peredvizhniki and his standing as a landscape painter within the Imperial Academy system. Contemporary critical response was mixed: while his early landscapes brought recognition and praise, Vladimir Stasov is reported to have criticized a degree of literal naturalism in later works such as Cows at Watering (1879), though the precise original wording of that criticism could not be verified from the available sources. Modern market-facing biographical summaries, such as one from the auction platform Invaluable, describe him in more admiring terms as a master of 19th century Russian landscape painting, though this reflects a modern secondary characterization rather than a period critical review.

Clodt's auction market is small but includes several six-figure results from the 2000s. The highest price identified in available sources is GBP 769,250 for the painting A riverside farm, sold at Christie's London in 2010; the exact calendar date of that sale could not be independently confirmed. Other notable results include GBP 241,250 for Cattle Watering at Sotheby's London in 2008, and GBP 94,850 for A River Landscape With A Boat Moored At Shore at Christie's London in 2004. A more recent sale of GBP 52,500 for Path Through a Birch Grove was reported at Sotheby's London around 2020, well below these earlier highs. Some listings, including an Invaluable artist page, show estimates as high as GBP 800,000 to 1,200,000 for works such as View of Kiev, but no confirmed realized price at that level has been documented, and estimates should not be treated as sale results. Given the limited number of public transactions, any single result should be read with caution rather than as evidence of a broader price trend.

There is no published catalogue raisonne for Clodt, so attribution rests on auction house cataloguing, provenance, and comparison with securely documented museum holdings such as those at the Tretyakov Gallery and the Russian Museum; some works in the market carry attribution qualifiers. No current gallery or estate representation has been identified, which is typical for an artist who died in 1902 and whose work now circulates almost entirely through the auction market. The auction record spans a handful of six-figure results from 2004 to 2010, well above a more recent 2020 sale, so collectors should treat pricing data for this artist as provisional and verify specifics directly with the selling auction house before relying on them.