VSEVOLOD MIKHAILOVICH PETROV-MASLAKOV (RUSSIAN b.1930) In the ploughed fields Signed in Cyrillic and dated 1956 (lower right) Oil on canvas  137 x 203cm (54 x 80in) Provenance:  The Artist's Union, Leningrad Roy Miles Gallery, London (1989) Purchased from the above by the present owner   Exhibited:  Leningrad, The Artist's Union, Winter 1989, no. 90 For a smaller related version of the present work painted in 1955 titled Lunch in the field in a private collection see: Matthew Cullerne Bown, A Dictionary of Twentieth Century Russian and Soviet Painters 1900-1980s, London, 1998, p.239, illustrated.      Born in Leningrad, Petrov-Maslakov studied at the children's art school, the Intermediate Art School and the Repin Institute. He began exhibiting in 1956, participating in such shows as Soviet Russia in Moscow in 1960 and later taught at Leningrad Higher Arts and Crafts College.