In Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin’s estate on Novinsky Boulevard, in a cozy dressing room, one can see the artist’s stage belongings: wigs, costumes, theatrical noses, as well as sketches of set designs. There one may also find a portrait of the singer as Ivan Susanin, whom he played in Mikhail Glinka’s opera “Life for the Tsar”, drawn by Nikolai Vasilyevich Kharitonov. The artist prepared a series of pencil sketches and painted two portraits of Chaliapin.

The role of Ivan Susanin was the most important step in Feodor Chaliapin’s career. Savva Mamontov, a famous industrialist and patron of the arts, persuaded Chaliapin to leave the Imperial Stage for his theater. Thus, Chaliapin appeared before the audience in the role of Ivan Susanin on the stage of Mamontov’s Russian Private Opera in Moscow.

Mamontov’s theater made the singer world famous: the theater’s stage became his artistic laboratory, where many of his brilliant creations were conceived and perfected. Not only did Chaliapin move away from formulaic interpretations of Susanin’s personality, but also created a lively, vivid stage persona — truthful and unassuming. Russian art expert Eduard Stark wrote:

Chaliapin recalled that Mamontov supported him in all of his creative endeavors:

Artist Nikolai Vasilyevich Kharitonov was born in the Yaroslavl Governorate and moved to St. Petersburg at the age of 12 to work in a stationery shop, and then in a workshop that made signboards. Around 1895, he went to Valaam and painted icons for two years, as a novice in a monastery. Returning to St. Petersburg, he studied at the Drawing School of the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of Arts and in the workshop of Lev Dmitriev-Kavkazsky. During World War I, he was mobilized and commissioned by the Trophy Commission to carry out portrait sketches of the Russian army generals.