Tchoumakoff

Who they were

"Tchoumakoff" is a family: Théodore Tchoumakoff (Russian Fyodor Petrovich Chumakov, 1823–1911), a Russian portrait painter settled in Paris; his wife, whom Marie calls "la mère Tchoumakoff"; and their daughter Léonie. They are not doctors: the diary introduces him on 27 April 1879 as "Tchoumakoff, le peintre" (085.0026) and his wife and daughter as "femme du peintre" and "Mlle Tchoumakoff" (084.0708). The entry is filed under people/doctors by mistake.

The painter. Born in St Petersburg in 1823 into a military family, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts under Karl Briullov and Pyotr Basin, was named an academician in 1852, and left Russia for good in 1857, settling in Paris, where he exhibited regularly at the Salon from 1863 or earlier. He painted mainly portraits of women and sentimental "têtes" in the manner of Greuze; the French state bought his Christ Mocked in 1865 and Alexander II acquired his The Saviour and the Rich Man in 1866. He died in Paris in January 1911 (the French article gives 22 January, the Russian one 16 January) after burns from an overturned lamp. (Wikipedia fr, "Théodore Tchoumakoff"; Wikipedia ru, "Чумаков, Фёдор Петрович"; Musée d'Orsay artist catalogue.)

His wife was Joséphine Maucourt (1823–1891); they had a daughter, born in 1859, who became the painter Léonie de Loghadès (Wikipedia fr). That fits the diary exactly: Marie says in November 1883 that Léonie married "il y a un an à peine" a man named Loghadès (102.0265) and was then twenty-three (102.0271). The identification of the diary's Tchoumakoff with Théodore Tchoumakoff is therefore certain.

Marie and the Tchoumakoffs

1879–81: a Saturday regular. They are among the "monde habituel" of the Bashkirtseff salon from the spring of 1879, Mme and Mlle Tchoumakoff calling on 20 April 1879 (084.0708) and the painter coming for his daughter on the 27th (085.0026). They dine and come to the Saturdays through 1879–1881 (085.0584, 086.0384, 086.0406, 087.0432, 089.0162, 090.0083, 091.0408). On 3 December 1879 Tchoumakoff is one of the guests at an "artists' dinner" with Robert-Fleury and Julian (086.0621). He gives opinions on her painting, as on 21 March 1880, when he and the sculptor Saint-Marceau both give her advice (087.0655), at the time she was preparing her Salon entry, the Question du divorce, and Marie enjoys "causer peinture" with him, though they differ: on 6 September 1880 she notes that he thinks one cannot love both Zola and Musset (089.0469, 089.0475). She exchanges New Year gifts with Léonie, "la petite qui sort beaucoup et qui n'a pas de dot" (090.0576–090.0577), and dances with Soutzo at a dinner of 13 July 1880 (089.0139).

Gossip. On 23 February 1880 Mme Tchoumakoff reports that Berthe is compromising herself (087.0530), and on 19 December she calls her "perdue" (090.0417). On 11 September 1881 Marie learns from Bojidar that "les Tchoumakoff si plates et si flatteuses sont des langues de vipère": the mother says "des horreurs" about the Bashkirtseffs, "des choses immondes" about Marie herself (093.0070). She writes it down so that whoever reads her diary can weigh later accusations (093.0070); but the visits continue, and in her private judgments the mother becomes "cette oie de mère Tchoumakoff" (091.0527) and, by the end of 1883, "insupportable", given to ecstasies over Marie's nose and hair "comme si elle vous voyait pour la première fois" (102.0585).

1883: Léonie's marriage and the sculptor Carriès. On 3 July 1883 Marie, her aunt and Tchoumakoff go to look for the sculptor Jean Carriès in the rue Boissonnade; Tchoumakoff is "fou" about the twenty-four busts he calls Les Désolés, Marie unconvinced (100.0279–100.0280; see Les Désolés (Carriès)). On 19 November 1883 the father brings Léonie, who had announced her marriage a year before to a young Greek-Turkish ex-attaché of embassy, Loghadès, aged twenty-four. She tells Marie, calmly, of her wretched life in Constantinople and of leaving her two-week-old baby; Marie thinks her a "grande dinde" with a fine profile when she keeps quiet, and that the mother married her off at twenty-three because she was afraid of her staying single (102.0265–102.0273).

The last mentions. The family still dines with Marie in December 1883 and January 1884 (102.0407, 102.0505, 102.0640, 103.0117). On 17 July 1884, Marie, hurt by someone's indifference, writes that she would hate to be to him what "les Engelhardt ou les Tchoumakoff sont pour nous" (105.0233): that is, mere acquaintances.

In Marie's art

No portrait of any Tchoumakoff by Marie is recorded. The painter is, in the diary, one of the few professional artists of the Russian colony to give her opinions on her work.

Related entries

Sources