Bakst also painted a lot of portraits of his contemporaries — the poetess Zinaida Gippius, the writer Vasily Rozanov and others.

In 1897, the artist painted a portrait of Dmitry Filosofov, who was Diaghilev’s cousin and right-hand man. His friends called him a proud man, an intellectual, an aristocrat. He had a sharp tongue and an outstanding mind, but, apart from that, was quite unpleasant socially. In other words, he was the direct opposite of Bakst. “Bakst”s characteristic feature was his inexorable amiability and benevolence, combined with a childish naivety, which one could plainly see in his extremely short-sighted eyes”, that was how the protagonist of his opus described the artist. They became friendly, owing to their love for art thanks to gatherings at Alexandre Benois’.

In 1898–1904 Dmitry Filosofov worked at the World of Art magazine as the literary section editor and later — as the head of the art criticism section. In the late 1890s he became close with Zinaida Gippius and Dmitry Merezhkovsky and become an active supporter of ‘the new religious consciousness. Filosofov did not embrace the October Revolution. In 1919 the writer emigrated to Poland where ge lived and worked up until his death in 1940s.