Catherine Semenova

Bryullov painted this portrait of Catherine Semenova in 1849, very close to the end of his life — he died in 1852. By this late period Bryullov had left Russia definitively in 1849, traveling to Madeira and then to Italy, partly in flight from the harsh Russian climate destroying his health and partly from dissatisfaction with official artistic life in Saint Petersburg. The late Bryullov portraits retain the technical mastery that had made him the dominant figure in Russian academic painting for three decades: the solid construction of the head, the confident rendering of fabrics, the psychological directness that distinguished his work from his contemporaries. The absence of a current museum location in the records suggests the work may have passed through private hands since its creation in the final years of his career.

Bryullov's late oil technique on canvas maintains the confident academic construction of his prime, while the handling shows a somewhat looser quality — the result of age and deteriorating health rather than any diminishment of fundamental skill.