The art collection of the Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev House Museum contains one of the artist’s earliest works — a portrait “Man Standing by the Window”.

Kustodiev (who was only 18 years old at the time) depicted his older friend Nikolay Petrovich Protasov standing by the window. His intelligent, slightly sad face and a part of his figure are illuminated in the semidarkness of the room by the light coming in through the window. This small-format portrait with a reserved, subdued color palette is a noteworthy work by the soon-to-be renowned artist who left Astrakhan in 1896 and entered the Higher Art School at the Imperial Academy of Arts (Saint Petersburg).

Nikolay Petrovich Protasov (1865–1941) was an amateur painter and illustrator from Astrakhan. Protasov had a penchant for painting; he graduated from the Astrakhan Realschule, where he studied drawing under Pavel Alekseyevich Vlasov. Protasov designed an album for the photographer Stanislava Klimashevskaya and participated in the creation of several series of postcards, dedicated to Astrakhan, by Vladimir Alexandrovich Sergeyev. A member of the Astrakhan Art Club organized by Pavel Vlasov and a friend of the Kustodiev family, Protasov kept correspondence with Boris Kustodiev for many years, briefing him on all the important events in the cultural life of the city, in which he took an active part.

Paintings by Protasov are displayed in the Astrakhan Art Gallery, as well as constitute a part of the art collection of the Astrakhan Museum Reserve. Ever since he was young, the artist was drawn to the theme of the development of fisheries in the city and its surroundings. His works provide an insight into the everyday life of fishermen in the 19^thcentury.

In 1920, Nikolay Protasov became the successor of Pavel Mikhaylovich Dogadin, the director and custodian of the art gallery collection, and he managed it until 1939. It was under Protasov’s management that the collection was moved in 1921 from Pavel Dogadin’s house to the mansion of the former mayor Ivan Nikolayevich Plotnikov. Thanks to Protasov, the gallery was actively expanding its collection by obtaining avant-garde paintings, a collection of engravings by Ivan Akimovich Repin, and European porcelain. Some museums also house propaganda posters, created by Nikolay Protasov.