Lively Winter Market Scene – Signed Miroff, Dated 1956

Lively Winter Market Scene – Signed Miroff, dated 1956 Oil on canvas Canvas dimensions: 102 x 77 cm Dimensions with frame: 121 x 96 cm Signed and dated on the back: Miroff 56 Monogrammed lower right. 19th century carved gilt wood frame Superb genre scene depicting a popular market in central Europe in the snow. The artist, with great realism, meticulously describes the daily life of a village: street vendors, traditional toys, young children, soldiers and townspeople in period costumes. The work is distinguished by its narrative richness and lively composition: each character seems to play a role in this slice of winter life, evoking both the picturesque and the collective memory of a vanished world. The brushstroke is precise, almost academic, and evokes the Russian or Austro-Hungarian pictorial traditions of the 19th century, in the tradition of painters such as Fedotov or the Polish realists. The painting is in perfect condition, the canvas having been relined. No overpainting is apparent. The frame, of great decorative quality, perfectly completes the whole. Artist identified on the back as Miroff, probably a painter of Russian origin active in the 1950s, whose classical training and attention to detail suggest a solid academic mastery.