少佐の求婚

Fedotov had been an army officer for ten years before he gave it up in the 1840s to paint, and he turned his eye on the social climbing of his own time. Here a middle-aged major, short of money, has come to a rich merchant's house to propose to the daughter. He wants her dowry. The merchant wants a nobleman in the family. Fedotov staged it like a scene in a theatre, everyone frozen at the sharpest moment: the girl in a low pink gown trying to flee the room, the mother catching her arm, the major smoothing his moustache in the doorway. He researched every object, the chandelier, the icons, the food laid out, so the merchant's new wealth shows in the details. The picture made him an Academician the next year.