Alexandra Korsakova-Galston

Marianna Korsakoff Galston Scheu (the artist's daughter), Louisville
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Alexandra Korsakova-Galston was a great grandniece of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the famous Russian composer. She spent her childhood in China, where her father was a physician in a Russian embassy. During the Boxer Rebellion, the staff of the Russian embassy sought refuge in the British embassy, where Alexandra, who was 16 years old, nursed the wounded with her father. Nicholas II decorated her with the Medal for Courage as well as a Red Cross Medal for Nursing. In 1905 Galston moved to Munich, where she studied art, returning to Moscow in 1910. While there, she studied painting with Ilya Mashkov and Nicholas Roerich. After her immigration to the United States, she became dean of the St. Louis Institute of Music.