The story of one portrait by Serov: how the fate of the "girl illuminated by the sun"

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Valentin Serov was the most famous and fashionable portrait painter of the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. and often wrote to order. But he had favorite models with whom he worked of his own accord. One of them was the artist's cousin Maria Simonovich, married to Lvov. Serov painted 8 portraits of her, but one of them is a real masterpiece. "Girl in the Sunshine" outlived its creator and went down in the history of world painting. The face of this girl is familiar to many, but few people know how her fate developed.

Serov wrote "The Girl in the Sunshine" at the age of 23. In 1888 he stayed at the Domotkanovo estate with his friend Vladimir Derviz. He was married to one of his cousins - Nadezhda, and the second sister - Maria - and became a model, whose portrait the artist decided to paint.

Maria Simonovich recalled how she posed for Serov: “After a long search in the garden to choose a place, we finally stopped under a tree, where a wooden bench was dug into the ground. The one sitting on it was illuminated by that summer light, playing from the foliage, shaken by a silent breeze, light that easily glided over his face … He was happy to write the model that satisfied him the most, I think, as an ideal model in the sense of non-fatigue, keeping a pose and expression … I had to constantly think of something pleasant in order not to break the expression I had once adopted … We worked hard, both equally carried away: he was a good writing, and I - the importance of my assignment … At the beginning of the fourth month I suddenly felt impatient; often the artist, wishing to achieve something even more perfect, spoils what is. I was afraid of this and therefore fled with a clear conscience, it was that I fled to St. Petersburg under the pretext of my studies in sculpture at the Stieglitz school.

In 1890, in Paris, Maria Yakovlevna married a psychiatrist Solomon Lvov. He was a political emigrant, and Maria remained to live abroad with her husband. She often came to Russia and always visited her sister in Domotkanovo. On one of these visits in 1895, Serov painted another portrait of her, which became the eighth and last in a row, and presented it to Maria.

In 1911 Serov died of an angina attack at the age of 46. Igor Grabar, a friend of the artist, recalled how, shortly before his death, Serov went into the gallery and stood for a long time near this picture, and then said: fizzled out. And I myself wonder that I did it. Then I kind of went crazy. It is necessary at times - no, no, yes a little and go crazy. Otherwise, nothing will come of it."

In 1936, in a letter to her sister, Maria Yakovlevna told an interesting story related to the "Girl in the Sunshine". Once, a Russian engineer who was on vacation in Paris came to visit him and her husband. Seeing a calendar with this portrait on the wall, he admitted that this stranger 30 years ago became his first love: every day he went to the Tretyakov Gallery to admire the portrait. He, of course, did not recognize the same girl in the 71-year-old mistress of the house. He was very surprised by this meeting, admitted that her eyes are all the same as in the portrait, and said goodbye to Maria: "Thank you for the eyes."

In 1939, the husband of Maria Yakovlevna died, and soon the Second World War began. Her sons were mobilized and she was left alone in Paris. Her diary contains the following entries: “1943, June. I am 78 years old, but I still live, although I feel that death is here, close, guarding a convenient moment. My greatest desire is to come to Russia, if not to live, then at least to look at everyone who understands me and … to die among you, so that they will be buried according to the Russian tradition, and lie in their own land. 1944, May. In a month I am 80 years old. Russian fellows, these victories over the Germans give strength to all people and hope to free themselves from the hated yoke. My desire and conviction: since Serov is a Russian artist, his works belong to Russians, to their homeland. Therefore, I very much ask my son Andrey to make the necessary orders and donate to the Tretyakov Gallery my portrait, which he still has."

Maria Yakovlevna lived to be 90 years old and died in Paris in 1955. Her last portrait by Serov, painted in 1895, remained in France: Maria's son, microbiologist, Nobel Prize laureate Andre Michel Lvov, after the death of his mother, transferred the painting to Paris Museum d'Orsay.

The artist did not feel the same warm feelings for all his models as he did for Maria Simonovich: why Russian nobles were afraid to order portraits from Serov