Portrait of Jelizaveta Zvantseva

Ilya Repin is probably the most highly respected Russian artist in Finland, due no doubt in part to him living in Terijoki for the last 30 years of his life, but also to his brilliance in depicting human emotions. In technical terms, this work shows features of both Realist and Synthetist painting. The model for this portrait, Jelizaveta Zvantseva, was a painter herself and a pupil of Repin's. She later founded an art school whose alumni included one Marc Chagall. This painting was donated to the Ateneum Art Museum by Ilya Repin in 1920.