The rich art collection of the Tarusa National Gallery is largely due to the love of local artists for this city. Some of them even spent significant periods of their lives here. Artist Antonina Rzhevskaya spent the last years of her life in Tarusa, living in the house of her daughter and son-in-law, graphic artist and animal sculptor Vasily Vatagin.

Rzhevskaya began her painting studies in 1880 at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture as a volunteer under the Itinerant artist Vladimir Makovsky. In 1897, she was accepted to join the Association of Travelling Art Exhibitions. The painting ‘A Merry Minute’ (1897) was acquired by P. Tretyakov and is now in the State Tretyakov Gallery collection.

The Itinerants (the Peredvizhniki) made children the permanent heroes of paintings. Along with adults, their images endowed with expressiveness and meaning. Here one can recall the famous ‘Troika’ (Triplet) by V.Perov, which reflects all the hard life of children given to artisans. The artist herself also turned to the children’s theme in her work, depicting her own daughters in the “Orphans” (1893).
“The Girl at the Window”, created in the 1920s, belongs to the later works of Rzhevskaya. The painting is permeated with light, which literally transforms the entire unsightly interior. The harmonious combination of pastel colors gives the image warmth and lyricism. Deep psychologism can be traced in the thoughtful expression of the face and the closed pose of the girl who, with hope and slight sadness, looks out for someone through the window. The shimmers of light on her pale pink cambric children’s dress are realistic.

The image of the girl carries portrait features, which was typical for the artist’s work. Unfortunately, there is no information about whom exactly she painted. Her pictorial heritage is not numerous, but each work is a complete and carefully crafted composition.