Portrait of Yanitskaya

In 1865 the man who painted this was nobody yet. Ilya Repin was a student at the Academy of Arts in St Petersburg, about 21 years old, still years away from the Barge Haulers on the Volga that would make him famous across Russia. Work like this is how a young painter paid his way: a commission. The sitter was the wife of Konstantin Yanitsky, chief physician of the Kalinkin naval hospital in the city, and Repin painted the couple as a pair, her portrait beside his. You can see the training in it. The surface is smooth and careful, almost photographic, the drawing is exact, and the mood is held in check, very much the sober portrait manner of the mid-century. We know a fair amount about her husband and his post at the hospital. Her own first name has not come down to us.