Sergey Korovin

Sergei Korovin (1858–1908) was a younger Russian painter and Makovsky's contemporary in the generation following the founding Peredvizhniki. Korovin specialised in large-scale social genre scenes depicting peasant life, particularly scenes of collective action, and was a respected figure in Moscow art circles. Makovsky's 1892 portrait of Korovin, held at the National Museum in Warsaw, belongs to the tradition of artists painting each other's portraits — both as personal tribute and as a contribution to the visual history of the profession. Such portraits are valuable historical documents: Korovin's own image was not widely reproduced, and Makovsky's rendering gives us a record of how a fellow genre painter appeared to a colleague who knew him well. The Warsaw museum's collection includes several such Russian artistic portraits, which entered Polish collections through the broad dispersal of Russian art in the late imperial period.

A portrait of a fellow painter by Makovsky would be an opportunity for honest, unaestheticised characterisation rather than flattering social portraiture. Oil on canvas at a scale suited to a studio or semi-formal portrait. The handling would be direct and economical — one painter reading another without the social performance that formal commissions required.