The Ashmolean is home to an important collection of Russian art. However, for conservation reasons, the collection of 170 drawings and watercolours cannot be displayed permanently because works on paper are sensitive to light.

“So, it’s wonderful to be able to get out this selection for visitors to see,” said Dr Caroline Palmer, print room assistant. A small display set up in Gallery 62 takes as its lead Leonid Pasternak’s 1905 pastel portrait of his two sons, Boris and Alexander — Boris, later the author of Dr Zhivago, then a 15-year-old, pictured looking intently at us, book in hand, and his twelve-year-old brother Alexander sitting to his side, looking possibly a little self-conscious, thumbs firmly stuck into belt.

Born in Odessa in 1862, Leonid Pasternak, a leading Russian artist renowned for his portraits, uses pastel with such freedom and energy in this work, it is a joy to look at, yet simultaneously he subtly handles light and shade, especially in the boys’ faces.

A number of watercolours and drawings by fellow Russian artists Konstantin Somov, Alexander Benois, and Leon Bakst, plus Pasternak drawings (given to the museum by the artist’s daughters; Pasternak settled in Oxford in 1938), can be seen in the drawers in nearby display cases. There’s as sunlit a scene as you’ll get in any French Impressionist work in Sortie de la Villa Maurel, Cassis, 1929, by Benois; there’s Somov’s sexy girls, prettily painted in dappled sunlight; and two wonderful stage designs by Bakst and Benois — normally too large to go out on show, I’m told, even in Gallery 53 where a small number of Russian works are exhibited in rotation.

Among the costume designs for opera included don’t miss the wonderful characterisation of the Matchmaker (‘Babarikha’) by Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin. It is so highly finished, far more than a costume sketch that you feel Bilibin must have enjoyed drawing it.

Russian Art
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Until January 11
Visit ashmolean.org