Akim Egorovich Karneev came from a family of state peasants. From the age of eight, he studied drawing at the parish school and copied engravings. The drawings of the novice artist were noted by Count Pavel Kiselyov. By his order, Karneev was assigned to the Moscow Stroganov College where Akim Egorovich studied landscape, figures, colors, perspective and ornament. After five years of study, he received the right to teach painting in county schools. Then the young artist went to St. Petersburg, where he became a non-matriculated student at the Imperial Academy of Arts.

More than once Akim Karneev was awarded medals of the Academy of Arts. In 1861, he went abroad for six years, traveling in Europe. He visited Paris, London, and then lived in Italy. After returning from Rome, Karneev and his family settled in Sevastopol, Crimea. He painted a lot on religious topics: he created iconostasis for churches in Odessa and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, made four wax paintings on biblical themes for the Vladimir Cathedral. In 1883, the artist founded the Original Drawing School in Sevastopol, where he taught until his death. Karneev died in 1896. He was buried in the necropolis of St. George’s Monastery in Sevastopol, but his grave has not been preserved.

The Voronezh Museum received the painting “Dressing a Village Girl for a Wedding” in 1933 from the collection of the Museum of Local Lore. Now the work has a different name — “The Wedding Preparation.” It was thanks to “Dressing a Village Girl for a Wedding” that Akim Egorovich was awarded the second (Small) and first (Grand) silver medals of the Academy of Arts.

The plot of the canvas is extremely simple, the action develops at a very slow pace. This is not so much a story about an event as a depiction of a person in a certain life environment. The image of costumes, details, and furnishings is combined with strict observance of the rules: locality and purity of colors and the absence of pronounced individual features reduced to the traditional ideal of beauty.