In the last years of his life, the recognized landscape painter Isaac Levitan begins to work on the large, monumental canvas ‘Lake’ - a collective image of Russian nature. The artist initially intended to name his painting ‘Russia, ” because it accommodated his thoughts on the character and soul of Russia.
Nevertheless, the painting remained unfinished; now it is in the collection of the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. Many sketches of it preserved, one of which, probably, is a work from the collection of the Penza Art Gallery named after K.A. Savitsky. It was created in the Bogorodskoye estate of the Olenin family near Moscow, located beside Lake Senezh and the Podsolnechnaya (Sunflower) station of the Nikolaev Railway.