I studied a little… although I was very diligent at the Academy, but I learned everything in Little Russia: There I painted from life and without rest, I painted everything and everyone, and these works of mine seem to be the best of all I have created.

Tropinin lived a long life, and he was destined to find true recognition, even fame, to receive the title of academician and become the most prominent artist of the Moscow portrait school of the 1820s–1830s. Having started his path in Sentimentalism, although his manner was more didactic and sensitive than Borovikovsky’s Sentimentalism, Tropinin developed his own style of portrait painting. There is no romantic impulse of Kiprensky in his canvases, but they captivate with simplicity, artlessness, sincerity of expression, truthfulness of characters, and realistic depiction of details. <…> In his work, Tropinin chose to give naturalness, clarity, and balance to simple compositions of a half-length portrait image. He preferred a neutral background with few accessories.