Portrait of Henriette Girshman

The Portrait of Henriette Girshman (1907) is one of Serov's most formally adventurous late works and has attracted significant art-historical attention for its unusual compositional boldness. Henriette Leopoldovna Girshman and her husband Vladimir Girshman were prominent Moscow collectors and cultural patrons; Serov painted both husband and wife over a period of years. The 1907 portrait of Henriette places her in an interior setting rendered with a flattening of space and a simplified treatment of form that shows Serov engaging with the compositional experiments of the European avant-garde — particularly the Japanese-influenced flatness that was circulating through decorative art and early modernist painting. The result is a portrait in which the figure and her reflective environment (a mirror was incorporated into the composition) create an unusually complex spatial game.

The compositional structure departs from Serov's earlier naturalistic space, incorporating flattened planes and a mirror reflection that complicates spatial reading. The paint handling is confident and selective, with areas of high finish balanced against more summary passages.