The picturesque study “Portrait of Dunya” was painted by the Russian artist Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin at the very beginning of his artistic career. In addition to “Dunyasha” (one of the titles of the painting), the museum’s collection includes other works of the artist’s early period: “Forester”, “Pine”, and “Alley”. All these studies were created in the 1890s in the Tver governorate, where the fourteen-year-old Bilibin spent the summer visiting friends.

Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin was born in 1876 in the village of Tarkhovka near Sestroretsk in the vicinity of Saint Petersburg. In 1896, after graduating with a Silver medal from the First St. Petersburg Gymnasium, at the insistence of his parents, he entered the Faculty of Law at the St. Petersburg University.

Bilibin spent the summer of 1898 in Munich (Germany), where he studied at the private art studio of the famous painter and teacher Anton Ažbe. Many famous artists of their time, trained under Ažbe, including Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Igor Grabar, Dmitry Kardovsky, Yelena Makovskaya, David Burlyuk, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Vasily Kandinsky and others, studied at the school. Upon returning to St. Petersburg, while visiting Princess Maria Klavdievna Tenisheva in her house on Galernaya Street, Bilibin learned about Ilya Repin’s free art workshop and soon became a student of the outstanding Russian painter.

The artist’s early works are executed in a realistic manner, but at the same time they are imbued with the naive admiration of nature innate in young people. Even though the artist’s style had not yet been clearly formed, the future characteristic, individual qualities of Bilibin’s artworks were already manifested in the presented study: a love of clarity, unambiguity, observation, a firm hand, and a special intuition for color. For example, the color scheme of the “Portrait of Dunya” is based on the use of additional tones. The painting is characterized by a classic composition, the small size of the canvas is also noteworthy. The choice of the plot for the study is quite peculiar: at the very beginning of his artistic career, Bilibin’s interest in peasant images was evident. Later, it would become the basis of his artistic style.