Artist Mikhail Nesterov is referring to the theme of unrequited love in the For Love Potion painting. He depicts a young girl, who comes to a solitary wizard to bewitch the loved one. This is the second variation of the plot, stored in the Radishchev Museum.

Several year prior to that the painter created the first version of the picture. But he wasn’t satisfied with it, as the costumes and nature were too much detailed. The author considered such a deliberate attention to details excessive. Currently, it is unknown where that painting is. In the second version, Nesterov sacrificed ethnographic accuracy for the sake of the heroine’s anguish of mind.

The work was presented to the public at the 8th Periodic Exhibition of the Fine Arts Society. It was exhibited under the Heartache-Anguish slogan. The painter used to say that this phrase is nothing else as the explanation of my painting.

In his painting, Nesterov depicts two figures, i.e. the young girl sitting on a log near the old man’s wooden house and the wizard himself on the doorstep. There is a beaten path towards his house as he often receives guests. The heroine came for the love potion. The painter depicts grief and confusion in her eyes. She inclined her head and is ashamed of her request.

Nesterov places figures close to each other to diminish space in the picture and to make it intimate. He doesn’t use the background, thus approximating viewers to what is happening in the picture.

Sorrowful, lonely girls are one of the main motives of Nesterov’s works of art. He started to refer to this theme in 1886 when his wife Mary died in childbirth. The artist captured the image of his beloved wife in many paintings.

The painting was presented to the Radishchev Museum by the author in 1890.