Portrait of M. K. Tenisheva

The woman in this 1896 portrait was one of the great patrons of Russian art, and Repin knew her from close up. Maria Tenisheva ran a free painting studio in her Saint Petersburg house, and Repin, the most celebrated Russian painter of the day, oversaw the teaching there. She was not content to sit for portraits. On her estate at Talashkino, near Smolensk, she gathered painters, craftsmen and musicians and turned it into one of the liveliest centers of Russian art, and within a few years she would help fund the magazine that launched the World of Art movement. Repin painted her more than once in these years. The portrait now hangs in Smolensk, the city beside the estate whose workshops and collections she built and eventually gave away.