Amazon (picture of Franz)

Painted around 1925, the portrait depicts a young woman riding a horse in a riding suit. In a picturesque and compositional sense, the picture stands out among the works of the artist of the 1920s, having no close analogues both in the largest collection of the Russian Museum (32 paintings and 102 graphic works), and in the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery , museums in Pskov and Rybinsk (each in one work of this period) ^[2] and is an extremely rare genre of female equestrian portrait for Soviet painting.

Obviously, Frenz used the landscape of the environs of Marienburg as a background, which is also found in his earlier works on hunting topics, for example, in the painting “Hunting of the 15th Century” ^[3] (1910s, State Russian Museum ). In Marienburg, R. Frents was born in 1888 in the family of academician of painting Rudolf Ferdinandovich Frents (1831-1918). The heyday of the royal hunt, which began in the 1950s, is closely connected with Marienburg. A jaeger settlement arose here, which gave the artist excellent material for paintings. R.F. Frents also accompanied the members of the imperial family during the hunt, so the artist’s family lived in Marienburg ^[4] .

The work is effectively balanced in color, successfully combines the techniques of decorative and traditional realistic painting. The static nature of the composition, its proximity and an unexpectedly taken angle do not interfere with the perception of the image.

The German art historian Alexandra Demberger in his monograph (2018, Regensburg), dedicated to the history of the female equestrian portrait, describes in detail the “Amazon” by R. Frentz. Comparing it with the "Amazonian" by E. Manet (Portrait of Maria Lefebvre, 1870) and finding some similarities in the compositional solution, the author notes that, unlike Manet, in the portrait of R. Frentz the horse has an equal, if not even higher status, than man. ^[5]

The painting "Amazon" was first shown at a personal exhibition of R. Frents in 1928 in Leningrad in the "Community of Artists" , one of the founders of which he became in 1922 ^[6] . Subsequently, the picture was stored in the family of R. Frents. In 1970, it was demonstrated at his personal exhibition ^[7] in the halls of the LOSH .

• Franz Rudolf Rudolfovich
• Leningrad Union of Artists

• Exhibition of the artist R. R. Frents. April May. Catalog . L., Community of Artists, 1928.
• Rudolph Rudolfovich Frents. Exhibition catalog . L., Artist of the RSFSR, 1970.S. 10.
• Fine art of Leningrad. Exhibition catalog . L., Artist of the RSFSR, 1976.P. 33.
• Rudolph Frenz . SPb., State Russian Museum, 2005. ISBN 5-93332-186-9 .
• Ivanov C.V. Unknown Socialist Realism. Leningrad school. SPb., NP-Print, 2007.P. 10, 342, 346, 352-353, 372. ISBN 978-5-901724-21-7 , ISBN 5-901724-21-6 .
• Alexandra Demberger . Damen hoch zu Ross: Vom königlichen Herrscherportrait zum bürgerlichen Adelsportrait. Regensburg, Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2018.

• Rudolph Rudolfovich Frents (1888-1956). Biography and bibliography.