Vasily Vasilyevich Zhuravlyov was a unique figure, both a representative of the merchant class and a romantic revolutionary. His fascination with progressive ideas, combined with Russian traditions, created a seemingly contradictory blend that was reflected in his works. Vasily Zhuravlyov first came to Tarusa in 1916 when he moved there from his hometown of Kungur. He bought a house in Tarusa and set up a workshop. There, he created some of his most notable works, exploring the life of this small but picturesque town. From that time on, the artist spent every summer in Tarusa painting narrative scenes, portraits, landscapes, and still lifes. In his works of the “Tarusa period”, the artist captured not only the beauty of the region but also the unique personalities of the people who lived there.

The Irbit State Museum of Fine Arts houses a painting “A Young Woman from Tarusa” created by Vasily Zhuravlyov. In this work, he depicted a young woman living in a Soviet village on the banks of the Oka River in the Kaluga Region, shortly after the end of the war. She is a worker at a collective farm. The image of a smiling young woman sitting on a cart is harmoniously integrated into the natural surroundings. There are two preparatory studies for this painting and three large compositions. The first study was created in 1924, and the final painting was completed and exhibited in 1947. The exact details of the creative process behind this painting and its preparatory studies remain unclear. It is believed that the painting was inspired by the “Portrait of an Unknown Woman” by Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy. Vasily Zhuravlyov wanted to portray a beautiful Russian woman, a farm worker, riding on a cart filled with fresh grass on her way home from the fields. One day, he visited the writer Ivan Mikhailovich Kasatkin who lived on Pushkin Avenue in Tarusa, at the edge of the forest. There, he saw a beautiful young woman. She was sitting near the house and agreed to pose for the painter. They also found a cart. The artist made several studies before creating the painting itself. “A Young Woman from Tarusa” was displayed at the All-Union Exhibition of Soviet Art in 1947.