La Vague

1886–1887

Half a century of work: the jubilee

In 1886 the fiftieth anniversary of his creative labours is marked by an exhibition in Saint Petersburg and honorary membership of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts (other accounts date it to 1887). In 1887 Aivazovsky gives a jubilee dinner for 150 friends: each guest receives a miniature by the master set into a photograph of the artist at work in his studio.

1887

Gives Feodosia the water of the Subash spring

Unable to watch his town suffer from lack of water any longer, Aivazovsky, in an address to the city duma, gives Feodosia in perpetuity 50,000 buckets of clean water a day from his Subash spring. In 1887 work begins on a water pipeline, and in the park by the embankment a fountain is built to his design, from which townspeople draw water free of charge; in 1890 a grateful Feodosia raises a fountain-monument to him.

1888

Chekhov at Shakh-Mamai

In July 1888 Anton Chekhov, visiting Feodosia, spends a whole day at Aivazovsky's Shakh-Mamai estate and dines with its owner. The estate strikes him as luxurious and fairy-tale-like; in a letter he describes Aivazovsky ironically but recognises in him a complex nature worthy of attention.