Zinaida Eugenyevna Serebryakova (1884–1967) was born into the family of the famous sculptor Yevgeny Alexandrovich Lanceray in the family estate “Neskuchnoye” near Kharkov. The artist’s mother, Ekaterina Nikolaevna Lanceray, came from the famous Benois family.

The artist spent her childhood and youth in St. Petersburg in the house of her grandfather, architect Nikolai Leontievich Benois. The family moved there after her father’s death in 1886. Four years later, Zinaida graduated from the women’s gymnasium and entered the art school, which was founded by Princess Maria Klavdievna Tenisheva.

At the age of 17, she began taking lessons from Ilya Efimovich Repin, and later became a student of the portrait painter Osip Emmanuilovich Braz. She continued her art education by traveling to Italy and France. In 1905, Zinaida Eugenyevna married her cousin Boris Anatolyevich Serebryakov.

Zinaida Eugenyevna was formed as an artist in St. Petersburg. Her early studies already reflected her love for Russia. The artist’s paintings carried the charm of the Russian wide open spaces, meadows and fields. She became a representative of the younger generation of the artistic movement “Mir Iskusstva” (World of Art)

Zinaida Eugenyevna Serebryakova’s 1923 painting “Portrait of Radetskaya” reflected the talent of the portrait painter and her unique style. The person portrayed, Lydia Vladimirovna Borodina-Radetskaya, was born in 1878 in St. Petersburg, in the family of the actual state councilor Vladimir Rovensky.

The first spouse of the heroine of the portrait was Mikhail Borodin, who came from the hereditary nobility of the Ural Cossack army. He and Lydia Vladimirovna had to part during the revolution and the civil war. Her second husband was Pavel Stepanovich Radetsky. From 1910 to 1915, he workedfor the publishing house of the St. Eugenia Community, which was associated with Zinaida’s uncle, Alexander Nikolaevich Benois.

In the early Soviet years, Pavel Stepanovich Radetsky taught at the Institute of Technology and the Electrotechnical Institute. In 1935, he was arrested and exiled to Kazakhstan together with his wife Lidia Vladimirovna. A little later, the Radetsky were allowed to settle in Central Russia. In the spring of 1938, Pavel Stepanovich was arrested once again. He was shot on charges of cooperating with anti-Soviet terrorist German intelligence.

Lydia Vladimirovna was not informed about the execution, but she figured out that her husband would not return. Radetskaya stayed in Yaroslavl: she could not leave being a “socially dangerous element.” She lived for another ten years. Later, the couple was rehabilitated.