Leonid Pasternak

The artist painted the present work in Germany, some time between 1921 (the year he emigrated from Russia to Berlin) and 1927. According to Olga Sugrobova-Roth, author of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné, it was exhibited for the first time in Berlin in 1927.

There are two predecessors of the present work, pastel drawings, which the artist executed at the Molodi estate near Moscow in 1915. From 1913 to 1916, the Pasternak family spent several summers at the estate, renting an apartment in the old manor house. The woman in the shawl in the foreground is Olga Sergeevna Koshkina, who lived in the downstairs apartment. One of the pastels was purchased from the artist by Olga Neuberg and has remained in her family. The other, more finished pastel remained with the Pasternak family until 1957, when it was acquired by Nikita Lobanov-Rostovsky. It was sold at auction in Austria in 2025. For the pastel, see Rimgaila Salys, Leonid Pasternak: The Russian Years, 1875-1921, Oxford, 1999, no. 374, p. 115.

In 1939 Pasternak settled in Oxford. The present oil was twice exhibited posthumously in England. At these exhibitions it was erroneously dated 1915.