Ilya Repin (1844-1930)

Sophia Stakhovich (1862-1942) was a writer and a close friend of both Ilya Repin and Lev Tolstoy who frequented her estate of Palna-Mikhailovka in the Russian countryside. Repin stayed as a guest during the summer of 1891 and the winter of 1892, where he worked on a series of sketches based on the villagers of Palna. The present work is dedicated to Sofia Stakhovich as an illustration to accompany one of her essays.