Christ and Sinner

Henryk Siemiradzki was about 30 and still finding his way when this enormous canvas made his name. The subject was not his own: his patron, Grand Duke Vladimir, a brother of the tsar, set him the theme, drawn from a popular poem by Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy about a worldly woman who meets Christ at a feast. Siemiradzki split the scene in two, the plainly dressed Christ and his followers arriving from the left, the richly dressed woman among her feasting companions on the right. He showed it in 1873 at the World's Fair in Vienna, his first time exhibiting abroad, and came away with a gold medal. On the strength of it the Saint Petersburg Academy made him a full academician.