Ilya Repin was a famous painter of the second half of the 19th century who belonged to the Wanderers — a group of Russian Realist painters. The portrait genre occupied a special place in his work.

Repin mentioned that he always prepared carefully for his next painting: he learnt by heart the lines from the parts of the actors he portrayed, read the lyrics of the poets, listened to the music of the composers, went through the books of the writers. He said: ’… the task is enormous. One should guess and depict the ideal that is shared by the reasonable majority of people who live by their ethical and aesthetic needs of a higher order! ’

Repin painted the portrait of Lyubov Sazonova-Shuvalova, an actress of the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, in 1899.

Lyubov Sazonova was the daughter of the famous actor Nikolai Sazonov and the writer Sophia Smirnova. She became known as the performer of the main roles in the plays of Alexander Ostrovsky.

The portrait was painted in tempera, which was not typical for the artist — he usually preferred oil.

Repin chose delicate colors for the portrait palette: golden modest lace, gray-blue, almost transparent background and a pastel beige dress. There is hardly a single color in the picture that can distract the viewer from the pensive and focused face of the actress.

During his life, Repin created several dozen female portraits. He painted many famous contemporaries: the German pianist Sophia Menter; Polixena Stasova, who advocated for women’s rights in Russia in the 1860s; the Russian writer Tatiana Sukhotina-Tolstaya and many others. Some critics scolded Repin’s portraits of women for the lack of “salon elegance”. In return, the artist wrote: