Isaac Ilyich Levitan, Russian, 1860 to 1900, oil painting on canvas depicting a forest landscape. Signed lower right. Framed. Isaak Levitan is a Russian artist, a master of the mood landscape. Isaac Levitan is an outstanding founder of landscape painting of the 19th century. Levitan stands out as a spiritual master creating a poetic image of nature, with its deep emotionality of color shades, which makes the viewer feel in the artist's picture the wonderful state of Russian nature. His works were very enthusiastically appreciated by his contemporaries, who considered the artist's painting's mood landscapes with surprisingly truthful authenticity. His artwork can be considered with full confidence the standard in landscape painting. Provenance: Anna Feltsman Estate. Feltsman family: Oscar Feltsman 1921-2013 was a Russian Ukrainian-born composer of Lithuanian Jewish descent. He was the father of Vladimir Feltsman, born in 1952 a Russian-American classical pianist. Anna Feltsman was the first wife of Vladimir Feltsman. Authenticated by Aleksander Borovskiy, Chairman of the Contemporary Art Department of the Russian State Museum in St.Petersburg (Leningrad) since 1989. The Isaac Levitan painting is obviously one of his early works, titled "Sunset in the forest in winter. "I do consider it authentic as well as his signature, this painting stands out by the contrasting use of light and shades. I looked at the back of this remarkable and large painting and noticed that instead of using expensive canvas Levitan stitched pieces of Hessian Jute fabric. He simply had no money to buy real canvas. Levitan's Birch Grove,1885, coloristically in some way coordinates with this painting. A great example of art by the Great Artist! Respectfully A Borovskiy".