The Soviet artist Porfiry Nikitich Krylov most of all enjoyed working on children’s portraits. Alyonushka (Elena) is the artist’s granddaughter and daughter of his youngest son Anatoly. The artist painted her portraits at different ages — from infancy to adolescence. It is therefore no coincidence that the portrait of the one-year-old Alyonushka is among Krylov’s finest works and the painting “On the Balcony” depicts the artist’s wife reading a book to her granddaughter on a porch of their country house during a sunny summer day.

In the portrait on display, “Alyonushka” is only three years old, and growing up in a creative environment and looking at her famous grandfather and artist parents, she too became interested in drawing. The mood of the painting was accurately conveyed by the poet Nikolai Kolychev in his poem “The Artist”: