The woman cutting nails

Painted in 1847, when Tropinin was already in his seventies, this late genre scene demonstrates the sustained quality of his observation even in old age. The depiction of a woman trimming her nails is an intimate, unheroic subject that aligns with his lifelong preference for the private over the public, the quotidian over the theatrical. Russian genre painting in the mid-nineteenth century was beginning to shift toward the social critique that would later define the Wanderers movement, but Tropinin maintained a gentler register, finding dignity rather than pathos in everyday activity. The canvas is held in the National Gallery of Armenia, a reminder that Tropinin's influence extended beyond Moscow's galleries. The work exemplifies the tradition of Russian intimate genre painting that valued close observation of domestic life without moralistic overlay.

Tropinin employs his characteristic warm palette in this late canvas, though the brushwork is somewhat broader and less detailed than in his peak-period genre works. The figure is rendered in three-quarter light, with the hands and their activity occupying a prominent compositional position. Background elements are sketched in loosely, consistent with his mature economy of means.