Executed in 1887, the present drawing captures the historical moment when Dmitri Mendeleev ascended in a hot-air balloon in an attempt to observe a solar eclipse. Best known for his work on the periodic table, Mendeleev was both a passionate scientist and patriot, who devoted a great deal of his scientific capital to advance Russian technology, especially in industry and agriculture.

On 7 August 1887 large crowds gathered in a field near Klin to observe Mendeleev’s dangerous undertaking (fig.1). Having never navigated an air balloon before, Mendeleev was supposed to be accompanied by the military engineer and aeronaut Alexander Matveevich Kovanko. However, due to the rainy weather conditions, the two-person crew was too heavy for the balloon and spectators saw Kovanko jump out of the basket at the last minute, letting Mendeleev take off on his own. The flight was not very successful from a scientific perspective, the balloon failing to rise over the clouds. Nevertheless, it made Mendeleev famous across the continent. The dramatic story of a famous scientist risking his life and learning to navigate and land a hot-air balloon on his own during his first flight was so daring that the French Academy of Meteorological Aerostation awarded him a medal for it. (fig.2)

Ilya Repin, who was a friend of Mendeleev’s, came to observe the flight along with other famous artists and members of the scientific community. The scientist’s wife Anna Ivanova Mendeleeva recalled in her memoirs: ‘On the eve of the solar eclipse we found ourselves in a big rush, since Dmitri Ivanovich decided to observe the eclipse from a hot-air balloon, which he was promised would be sent to Klin. Repin also came to Klin equipped with paint and all the necessary tools for sketching: he was going to capture both the moment of take-off and the flight of the hot-air balloon (…) Notwithstanding the general excit.mes nt, Repin demonstrated incredible composure, allowing him to draw a sketch of Dmitri Ivanovich taking off into the air. This small sketch was shown at Repin’s solo exhibition at the Academy of Arts in 1891’ (quoted in I.Grabar, I.Zilberstein, Repin, Khudozhestvennoe nasledstvo, Moscow-Leningrad, 1949, pp.181-182).

Listed under sketches as Solar Eclipse in 1887 (Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev in a Hot-Air Balloon) in the 1891 exhibition catalogue (fig.3), the drawing is also referenced in Igor Grabar’s 1937 monograph on the artist. Although Repin is known to have exhibited preparatory sketches alongside his oil compositions, there is no evidence that he painted an oil of the same subject. Until recently, the present drawing was only known to art historians from a black and white photograph in the State Tretyakov Gallery archive.

When it was photographed for the archive the work belonged to the flamboyant American industrialist and patron of the arts Armand Hammer (1898-1990) who moved to Moscow in 1921 to oversee the operations of one of his projects (fig.4). While in Russia Hammer was able to take advantage of the sales by the Bolsheviks of Russia’s artistic treasures.