Anton Chekhov bought the estate in Melikhovo near Moscow in 1892 and lived there for seven years. He often entertained guests in the living room: they played the piano and violin, sang lyrical songs, played bingo and made sketches. Chekhov received patients both in the house and outhouse; the terrace and the interiors feature in his plays. Anton Pavlovich wrote about Melikhovo,

The writer’s sister, Maria Chekhova, was fond of drawing since childhood and attended courses at the Stroganov School. She was trained by her elder brother Nikolay, as well as his friends from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture: Konstantin Korovin, Valentin Serov and Isaac Levitan. The latter was in love with Maria and particularly praised her work. At any time of the year Maria Chekhova went out to the garden to make sketches. The artist Pyotr Sholokhov made a copy of her winter sketch on commission from the Melikhovo House-Museum.

Pyotr Ivanovich Sholokhov, a Russian painter, graphic artist, and member of the Union of Artists of the USSR, was born in 1898 in the Voronezh region. He studied in an art studio, then at the Higher Art and Technical Studio in Moscow. Sholokhov worked a lot in the genre of war painting and created a series of vivid scenes related to Leo Tolstoy’s sites in Yasnaya Polyana and those related to Anton Chekhov in Melikhovo. Sholokhov was mobilized for the war in 1943, at the age of 45:

The local historian Olga Avdeeva, daughter of Yury Avdeev, artist and director of the Melikhovo Museum, wrote,