Houston Chronicle (September 1999)
This painting of a beautiful girl is a replica by Russian restorers of a work by Girodet-Trioson.
Proler tackles Russian project
First, Lynette Proler and her co-authors managed to gain permission to research the records of fabled jeweler Carl Faberge that had long been sealed away in the Russian State Historical Archives. Their efforts resulted in the impressive 1997 book The Faberge Imperial Easter Eggs published by Christie's.
Now Proler, who moved the Proler antique garden business from Houston to Dallas about two years ago, is immersed in another form of Russian art. Last October she made arrangements with the prestigious State Hermitage Museum to commission replicas of the museum's Old Masters paintings.
The incredible oil-on-canvas copies are done by the skilled artists who restore the museum's Old Masters paintings. Inside the Hermitage studios the restoration artist places the original beside his canvas and faithfully re-creates, stroke by stroke, the technique, manner and style of the artist, according to Proler.
"We have 10 artists working for us. Each commission takes two to four months. This is a way for these artists to make money. The restorers are supposed to make$35 a month working on the Old Masters, but the government can't pay them," she explained.
Proler calls her new enterprise Russian Works of Art. She sold the first 30 commissioned replicas to a client in Mexico City. A Dallas collector commissioned one to hang amid his real Old Masters. New York interior designer has commissioned a painting for himself and is suggesting one for a client.
The first 30 were selected from the art book Paintings in the Hermitage by Colin Eisler (Stewart, Tabori & Chang) and another book of impressionist paintings. "But we can do anything from any museum," she added. The size can be customized from the original, and the replica will be signed b the artist and documented so that it cannot be mistaken for the original.
Prices start around $1,000 for a small painting and go up to about $15,000. Proler is back in Russia this week taking new commissions to the artists.