The painting “Marusya” became her personal point of reference. She believed it to be her best work and compared every other portrait to this one. By creating “Marusya”, Kiseleva regained her popularity in Russia.

In 1960, the art expert Margarita Lunyova found “Marusya” in the storage rooms of the Voronezh Museum. Thirty years earlier, the painting had been donated to the museum by the artist’s mother. Using the archives of the Academy of Arts, Margarita Lunyova managed to find Kiseleva’s address and enter into correspondence with her. As a result, the experts received the missing information about the biography of the artist who had lived in Serbia for a long time and discovered over 40 of her works.

Elena Kiseleva was born in Voronezh. She was the daughter of Andrey Kiselev, a mathematician and the author of algebra and geometry textbooks. She studied at the free drawing school in Voronezh, took private lessons at studios, and at the age of 22, she enrolled at the Higher Art School of the Academy of Arts. Elena Kiseleva became the first woman to be sent by the Academy for an internship to Europe.

In Paris, Elena Kiseleva became captivated with Impressionism. This fashionable style inspired her to create the portrait “Marusya” as well as her final project at the Academy “Parisian Café”. Her teacher Ilya Repin considered Kiseleva to be the most talented female artist of the Academy but criticized her new style saying,

The Silver Age romanticism and the training with Parisian masters shaped Kiseleva’s unique style, which was bright, rich, and fearless. It showed the influence of the Peredvizhniki movement and the ornateness of Art Nouveau. Despite the criticism from the Academy, the paintings of Elena Kiseleva were recognized with the Award of Arkhip Kuindzhi and achieved success at international exhibitions. The writer Maxim Gorky was among the admirers of her art and bought several of her paintings for his collection.