Konstantin Egorovich Makovsky

Private collection, New York (acquired circa 1960)

Beginning in the 1880s, Makovsky became preoccupied with the Russian Boyar theme.  The Russian Boyars were a privileged class of rich landowners in Medieval Russian society.  From the tenth to the twelfth century they constituted the senior group of the prince's retinue called the druzhina and served as the closest advisors to the prince, later the Tsar, performing higher state functions in civil administration and in the armed forces.  From the 15th to the 17th century, the Boyars formed an elite aristocratic class drawn from approximately 200 families composed of foreign aristocrats, descendents of former princes and old Moscow boyar families. 

Makovsky created a number of large-scale compositions based on this theme, including A Boyar Wedding Feast, now at the Hillwood Museum, Washington, D.C., The Choosing of the Bride, 1887, at the Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico and The Russian Bride's Attire, 1887, San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts.  Makovsky produced many studies of Boyars and Boyarina's and maintained a varied and extensive collection of props, clothing, costumes, fabric, and kokoshniks, which he used for his compositions. Yelena Nesterova points out that after Makovsky's death, his wife held an auction of his collection, and an extraordinary 1100 lots were sold in eleven days. 

The present work is a beautiful example of a Russian Boyarina, and like the major compositions noted above, this work entered an American private collection.  Particularly notable is the finely rendered jewels: the gleaming pearls and gems in the kokoshnik and the dazzling necklaces underscore Makovsky's virtuosity, while the young girl's delicate features, softly modelled and slightly blurred, recall the gentle mastery of Renaissance artists. The Young Boyarina looks directly towards the viewer, her mouth ever so slightly curved to form a perfectly enigmatic smile.