Alexander Gerasimov spent twelve years within the walls of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He was taught by famous teachers and artists: he studied in the head class under Konstantin Gorsky and Aleksey Korin; in the figures class — under Nikolay Kasatkin and Sergey Milarodovich; in the life model class — under Abram Arkhipov and Leonid Pasternak; in the portrait and genre painting class — under Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin. The evolvement of Alexander Gerasimov as an artist mainly took place in a difficult period that the country was experiencing after the revolutionary events of 1905–1907. The portrait of Olga Trifonovna Korobkova was created between 1912 and 1915. At that time, Alexander Mikhailovich was finishing the painting and architecture departments of the school and had already established himself as a gifted and unique young artist in the eyes of the art community and the general public.
The painter became acquainted with the Korobkov family through the efforts of the writer Vladimir Gilyarovsky, who brought the student of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture along with him on his visits. The merchant Trifon Ivanovich Korobkov was a well-known Moscow businessman, who moved in the financial and exchange circles and owned his own paper manufacture. He had a wonderful, beautiful wife — Olga Petrovna Korobkova, who inherited the mansion on Pyatnitskaya Street after her husband’s death. The presented portrait was commissioned. It depicts a beautiful rich woman with an expensive stole on her shoulders, wearing diamond earrings and a diamond on a string of pearls around her neck. The Korobkov family cherished this portrait and, as Korobkova’s daughter Olga Petrovna later recalled, they never let the painting be exhibited, even refusing the painter himself.
The painter became acquainted with the Korobkov family through the efforts of the writer Vladimir Gilyarovsky, who brought the student of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture along with him on his visits. The merchant Trifon Ivanovich Korobkov was a well-known Moscow businessman, who moved in the financial and exchange circles and owned his own paper manufacture. He had a wonderful, beautiful wife — Olga Petrovna Korobkova, who inherited the mansion on Pyatnitskaya Street after her husband’s death. The presented portrait was commissioned. It depicts a beautiful rich woman with an expensive stole on her shoulders, wearing diamond earrings and a diamond on a string of pearls around her neck. The Korobkov family cherished this portrait and, as Korobkova’s daughter Olga Petrovna later recalled, they never let the painting be exhibited, even refusing the painter himself.
