Lot 0019
A Russian wood composition ” Cossack on a horse”
Estimate: 500-600€
Cossack on Horseback
Russia (Danzig [Gdańsk], then part of the Russian Empire), late 19th century
Wood, metal
Dimensions: 21.5 × 16 × 7 cm
Inscribed: “А. Ханыковъ. Данцигъ”
A finely carved wooden composition depicting a Cossack horseman, holding a lance and seated on a spirited mount. The sculpture bears a dedication to Alexander Vladimirovich Khanykov (1825–1853) — a noted Russian revolutionary and member of the Petrashevsky Circle, an intellectual and reformist movement in mid-19th century St. Petersburg.
Khanykov, a volunteer student at the St. Petersburg University, was an active participant in the philosophical and political circles of Mikhail Petrashevsky and Nikolai Kashkin. A passionate advocate of Charles Fourier’s socialist ideas, Khanykov delivered a public speech in memory of Fourier on April 7, 1849. That same year, he was arrested in connection with the Petrashevsky case, sentenced to death (later commuted to exile as a private in the Orenburg line battalions).
In exile, Khanykov initiated a secret Russo–Polish–Ukrainian circle, which likely included the poet Taras Shevchenko, also serving in Orenburg. Members of the group held political discussions, wrote satirical pamphlets against the imperial government, and circulated banned literature on economics, geography, and history. Khanykov also compiled a clandestine manuscript on world history praising popular sovereignty and the ideals of the French Revolution of 1789 and 1848, expressing sympathy for Christian socialism.
This wooden sculpture — created in Danzig (now Gdańsk) — appears to be a commemorative or symbolic representation of Khanykov’s revolutionary courage and his association with the frontier and Cossack imagery.
Starting price: 400€
Estimate: 500-600€
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