Portrait of B. Snezhkovsky

Portrait of B. Snezhkovsky, dated 1934 and from Somov's late Parisian émigré period, represents the sustained portrait practice that provided him with income and occupied much of his working time during the 1930s. Russian émigré society in Paris in the interwar years was a close-knit world of former aristocrats, intellectuals, and artists, and Somov was a respected senior figure within it. Snezhkovsky as a surname suggests a Russian émigré sitter, likely from the community Somov knew personally. These late portraits are technically assured without the decorative brilliance of his pre-emigration work, more focused on psychological presence and honest observation of the sitter's character. The 1934 date places this work midway through Somov's Parisian decade, when he had established a stable if modest émigré existence and continued producing work that maintained the standards of his Russian Academy formation while adapting to the quieter demands of a private émigré practice.

Late Somov portraiture of the 1930s employs confident academic drawing underpinning a more loosely applied paint surface than his pre-emigration work. Faces are rendered with psychological directness and careful tonal modelling. The palette is restrained, appropriate to the sober circumstances of émigré commissions.