Zinaida Serebriakova (1884-1967)

Portrait of a young girl with blonde ringlets is executed in pastel, a preferred medium of Serebriakova which allowed her to work swiftly and render a wide-eyed softness to her subjects. In France, Serebriakova established herself in society circles as an exceptional portraitist. She created a large number of portraits depicting French nobility, representatives of Russian émigré circles and famous figures in art and culture. At the same time, in addition to commissions, Serebriakova also created portraits of friends and acquaintances, peasants and tradesmen.
Serebriakova gained critical appreciation for her portraits of children, a notoriously tough subject, in particular. In 1954, after viewing an exhibition of Serebriakova’s, the critic Vladimir Zeeler wrote: 'A child’s portrait seems to me to be the most difficult task. Life has yet to touch this small person, yet while there is something not quite of this earth, there is something pristine, such bright eyes, such a sweet inviting smile, too much in the face to put everything down on a severe canvas or hard board…But Zinaida Serebriakova knew how to capture her subjects so that their smiles remained sweet and warm. The childrens’ portraits of Serebriakova are remarkable…how simple, yet so good the compositions are! And the eyes? You don’t just look at them, they look at you. The portraits are alive.' (Vladimir Zeeler, ‘Exhibition of Z. and E. Serebriakov, Russkaia mysl’, Paris, July 1954).
The present portrait depicts a daughter of the concierge at 31 rue Campagne-Premiere. Serebriakova moved into this Art Nouveau house, which had been built in 1911, designed by André Arfvidson (1870-1935) and decorated with ceramic tiles by Alexandre Bigot (1862-1927), in May 1940 and remained there for the rest of her life.