Philip Malyavin painted ‘Peasant Girl’ from the museum collection in the 1890s. At that time, he created a whole gallery of female images, which brought him fame. The models for his portraits were peasant girls and women.

Philip Malyavin was born on October 10, 1869, in the Samara Governorate in a peasant family. From 1885 to 1892, he was a novice at St. Panteleimon Monastery on Mount Athos and worked in an icon painting workshop. There, he met the famous sculptor Vladimir Beklemishev, who appreciated the young artist’s talent, helped him to come to Saint Petersburg, and began to support him. In the autumn of 1892, Philip Malyavin became a non-matriculated student of the Imperial Academy of Arts. For a year and a half, he completed the head, figure, and outdoors classes programs.

The Commission did not immediately accept his graduation work ‘Laughter’: screamy colors, wide brush strokes, unpainted fragments and the absence of plot did not conform to the academic canons. However, in the end, the Council of the Academy of Arts accepted Malyavin’s work, as Ilya Repin came to his defense.

In 1918–1920, Malyavin lived in the city of Ryazan and worked in the local Commissariat for Education. His first personal exhibition was also held here. In 1922, the artist emigrated. He lived in France, Germany, Belgium.