Portrait of pianist and comtesse Louise de Mercy-Argenteau

Repin painted this in the autumn of 1890, in Saint Petersburg, over six or seven sittings. The woman on the sofa is Louise de Mercy-Argenteau, a Belgian countess who had spent years promoting Russian composers in Brussels and Amsterdam, at a time when almost no one in Western Europe would program them. By the time she sat for Repin she was gravely ill with cancer, and the portrait was arranged by her friend, the composer Cesar Cui. Repin gave her no flattery. She lies back against the cushions in a pale dress, too weak to rise, watching the painter with a steady, tired gaze. The last session took place eleven days before she died that November.