Girl with peaches

Girl with Peaches (, Devochka s Persikami) is an 1887 painting by the Russian painter Valentin Serov. It is considered to be one of Serov's greatest works and one of his most famous. Serov's friend and biographer, Russian art historian Igor Grabar, acclaimed it as "the masterpiece of Russian painting". According to the book 1000 Drawings of Genius, although the style of the painting (and Serov's early style in general) "has much in common with the French Impressionists, [Serov] did not become acquainted with their work until after he had painted [it]". History The painting depicts 11-year-old Vera Mamontova, a daughter of Russian entrepreneur and patron of the arts Savva Mamontov. It was painted at Abramtsevo, an estate not far from Moscow. Under the ownership of the writer Sergei Aksakov, Abramtsevo had become one of the centers of Russian culture. Mamontov bought the place in 1870 and continued the tradition. Among people who stayed there were painter Ilya Repin, writer Ivan Turgenev, painter Mikhail Vrubel, and sculptor Mark Antokolsky. It was a comfortable place for artists not only to gather and discuss important topics, but to live and create.