Girl with Peaches

Valentin Serov was only twenty two when he painted this. He had studied with Repin and had seen the work of the Impressionists in Paris, and here he did something new for Russian painting: he made light itself the subject. Look at the way the white tablecloth is really made of blues, pinks and greys, how the sunlight catches the edge of the girl's cheek, and how the leaves outside dissolve into strokes of green and gold. The peaches, with their velvety skin, are painted with obvious pleasure. Serov said he wanted freshness, the kind you see in nature and never find in a picture.

The painting took him more than a month of sittings, and Vera, who was full of energy, remembered them as an ordeal. It was shown in Moscow in eighteen eighty eight, won a prize, and hung at Abramtsevo until it entered the Tretyakov in the twentieth century. Vera died young, at thirty two, but the portrait made her immortal, and it is often called the beginning of modern Russian painting. Notice the plaster mask on the wall behind her: Serov had modelled it himself.

Did You Know? Vera Mamontova was so restless during the sittings that Serov later apologised to her for making a lively girl sit still for more than a month.