(Vršac 1859–1957 Vienna)
Queen Elena, study, signed P. Joanowits, oil on panel, 18 x 22 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private Collection, Austria, since three generations.

Exhibited:
Künstlerhaus, Vienna, autumn exhibition 1901, cat. no. 237.

Compare:
Petar Petrović, Paja Jovanović Belgrade 2012, p. 133, no. 333 (Queen Jelena, study for the painting Coronation of Emperor Dusan).

Künstlerhaus label 1901, 3064 confirmed by Nikolaus Domes M.A.

We are grateful to Dr. Petar Petrović for confirming the authenticity on the basis of a high-resolution photograph.

In 1900, Serbia was invited to the special World‘s Fair in Paris, for which the Royal Serbian Government founded a committee in 1897. its task was to select the artists who would present the country in France. The pavilion was to reflect the history of the country and was therefore built in the Byzantine-Serbian style and mainly decorated with paintings. At the beginning of 1899, Paja Jovanovic received the commission for the painting „Coronation of Stefan Dušan“ or „The Proclamation of the Dušan Codex“, which is now in the Serbian National Gallery in Belgrade (inv. no. 31.1255). It depicts the historical event that took place on 16 April 1346. Dušan convened a huge meeting in Skopje, attended by the Serbian Archbishop Joanikije II, the Archbishop of Ochrid Nikolas I, the Bulgarian Patriarch Simeon, among others. Under Emperor Dušan the Mighty, the country succeeded in becoming a regional power and his reign is considered the Golden Age of Serbia.
For the task of the painting, the artist devoted himself to extensive research and endeavoured to depict the event as factually as possible. Together with the historian Stojan Novakovic, he travelled to the Serbian Orthodox monasteries of Gracanica, Lesnovo, Prizren and Skopje. In the course of his research, Jovanovic also spent time in Vienna, where he researched libraries and archives for manuscripts and pictorial sources. For Jovanovic, the design of historical clothing, weapons and heraldry posed the greatest difficulty. Thus he sketched frescoes and, based on these drawings, had the costume designer of the Vienna State Opera make the clothing as a prop for his painting. The present lot is a product of these efforts. The small-format oil study was probably made in the course of his study trip. It was shown in Vienna at the annual exhibition in the Künstlerhaus one year after the monumental history painting was exhibited in 1901. The slightly inclined head posture of Queen Jelena is adumbrated. Likewise, Jovanovic adopts the hair decoration in the Byzantine style in this work. He only changed the crown, probably to emphasise the queen‘s position in the multi-figured work. The model was probably his childhood sweetheart Mila Mandukic, mother of the famous chess player Bora Kostic (1887-1963).
The artistic skill of Jovanovic is particularly evident in the well-composed head posture expressing grace. The precision and level of detail earned praise and honour from critics for his contribution at the Paris World‘s Fair.