Girl with Peaches
{{Short description|1887 painting by Valentin Serov}}
{{Infobox artwork
| image=File:Walentin Alexandrowitsch Serow Girl with Peaches.jpg
| title=Girl with Peaches
| artist=Valentin Serov
| year=1887
| medium=Oil-on-canvas{{cite book|author=Kenneth Bendiner|title=Food in Painting: From the Renaissance to the Present|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ygcrmSmQqRkC&q=%22Girl+with+Peaches%22+Serov&pg=PA222|year=2004|publisher=Reaktion Books|isbn=978-1-86189-213-3|pages=222–}}
| height_metric= 91
| width_metric= 85
| metric_unit = cm
| imperial_unit = in
| museum=Tretyakov Gallery
| city= Moscow}}
Girl with Peaches ({{langx|ru|Девочка с персиками|Devochka s Persikami}}) is an 1887 painting by the Russian painter Valentin Serov.{{cite book|author=John E. Bowlt|title=Russian Art, 1875–1975: A Collection of Essays|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wmx6DAjZCxsC&q=%22Girl+with+Peaches%22+Serov&pg=PA26|year=1976|publisher=Ardent Media|isbn=978-0-8422-0547-4|pages=26–}}
It is considered to be one of Serov's greatest works{{cite book|author=Maria Tsaneva|title=Serov: 131 Paintings and Drawings|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hc1WCAAAQBAJ&q=%22The+Girl+with+Peaches%22+Serov|date=12 February 2014|publisher=Lulu.com|isbn=978-1-312-00853-3}}{{Dead link|date=June 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}{{cite book|author=Helen Boldyreff Semler|title=Discovering Moscow: the complete companion guide|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lRharrAJOEYC&q=%22The+Girl+with+the+Peaches%22+Serov|date=27 April 1989|publisher=Equation|isbn=978-1-85336-084-8}} and one of his most famous.{{cite web|url=http://www.adme.ru/tvorchestvo-hudozhniki/10-zhenschin-so-znamenityh-kartin-o-chih-sudbah-my-ne-znali-1167060/|title=10 женщин со знаменитых картин, о чьих судьбах мы не знали|access-date=2017-01-04|archive-date=2022-02-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220218212314/https://www.adme.ru/tvorchestvo-hudozhniki/10-zhenschin-so-znamenityh-kartin-o-chih-sudbah-my-ne-znali-1167060/|url-status=dead}} 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]".{{cite book|author1=Victoria Charles|author2=Klaus H. Carl|title=1000 Drawings of Genius|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dx-YCAAAQBAJ&q=%22Girl+with+Peaches%22+Serov&pg=PA405|date=24 April 2015|publisher=ЛитРес|isbn=978-5-457-76680-8|pages=405–}}
History
The painting depicts 11-year-old Vera Mamontova, a daughter of Russian entrepreneur and patron of the arts Savva Mamontov.{{cite magazine|url=http://www.tretyakovgallerymagazine.com/articles/3-2015-48/girl-peaches-who-she|title=The "Girl with Peaches": who is she?|publisher=The Tretyakov Gallery Magazine|year=2015|issue=#3 2015 (48)|access-date=2016-12-26}}
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.
Valentin Serov knew Vera Mamontova from her babyhood, as he frequently visited Mamontov's Abramtsevo estate, and sometimes he even lived there for lengthy periods of time.{{cite web|url=http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/article/208430/|title=12 интересных фактов о "Девочке с персиками"|work=Vokrug Sveta|date=December 16, 2016|access-date=2017-01-02}}
Serov later recalled,
{{quote|All I wanted was freshness, that special freshness that you can always feel in real life and don't see in paintings. I painted it for over a month and tortured her, poor child, to death, because I wanted to preserve the freshness in the finished painting, as you can see in old works by great masters.[http://www.art-catalog.ru/article.php?id_article=345 Art-каталог: живопись и графика]{{cite book|title=Серов Валентин Александрович|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O2YTBAAAQBAJ&q=%22измучил+её%22+Cеров+%22Девочка+с+персиками%22&pg=PA17|date=14 July 2014|publisher=ДиректМедиа|isbn=978-5-87107-184-7|pages=17–}}}}
In 1887 the painting won first prize at the Exhibition of the Moscow Society of Lovers of Art.{{cite book|author1=Roger B. Anderson|author2=Paul Debreczeny|title=Russian Narrative & Visual Art: Varieties of Seeing|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780813012551|url-access=registration|year=1994|publisher=University Press of Florida|isbn=978-0-8130-1255-1|pages=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780813012551/page/126 126]–}}
The model, Vera Mamontova, was also painted by Viktor Vasnetsov in 'Girl With a Maple Branch' (1896). Vera married the head of the Moscow Nobility League, future Chief Prosecutor of the Most Holy Synod {{illm|Alexander Dmitrievich Samarin|ru|Самарин, Александр Дмитриевич}} in 1903. They had three children. In 1907, at the age of 32, she contracted pneumonia and died just a few days later.{{cite web
|author = Manaev, G.
|url = https://www.rbth.com/arts/330328-most-famous-russian-paintings-explained-girl-peaches
|title = Most famous Russian paintings explained: 'Girl With Peaches' by Valentin Serov
|lang = en
|publisher = Russia Beyond The Headlines
|date = 2019-05-07
|access-date = 2020-02-19
}} She is buried in Abramtsevo.{{cite web|url=http://tvzvezda.ru/news/vstrane_i_mire/content/201601250031-re2b.htm|title=Пять тайн "Девочки с персиками": что стало с героиней знаменитой картины Серова – Телеканал "Звезда"|date=25 January 2016 }}{{cite web |url=http://www.kulturologia.ru/blogs/191015/26759/|title=Как сложилась судьба "девочки с персиками": 7 удивительных фактов о самой известной картине Серова}}
Internet meme
The painting spawned a Russian Internet meme,{{cite web|url=http://www.aif.ru/culture/art/devochka_s_persikami_i_krik_istoriya_kartin_stavshih_internet-memami|title="Девочка с персиками" и "Крик". История картин, ставших интернет-мемами|publisher=Argumenty i Facty|date=2016-01-20}}{{cite news|url=http://www.kp.ru/daily/26481/3351735/|title=Путин посоветовал Мединскому посмотреть фотожабу на "Девочка с персиками"|newspaper=Kp.ru - |date=18 January 2016 |last1=Смирнов |first1=Дмитрий }} in which the girl is placed into humorous scenarios or is replaced by a different person or character. One of the altered pictures depicted the girl sitting at a very large table covered with all sorts of dishes and was titled "The Girl with Peaches: Full Version".{{cite web|url=http://glagol.su/2016/01/19/putin-prodemonstriroval-znanie-internet-shutok/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170103170723/http://glagol.su/2016/01/19/putin-prodemonstriroval-znanie-internet-shutok/|url-status=dead|archive-date=2017-01-03|title=Путин продемонстрировал знание интернет-шуток|publisher=ГЛАГОЛ|date=2016-01-19}}
References
{{reflist|30em}}
External links
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20160305011911/http://www.tretyakovgallery.ru/en/collection/_show/image/_id/316 Girls with Peaches] on the Tretyakov Gallery's website
Category:Paintings by Valentin Serov
Category:Paintings of children
Category:Collection of the Tretyakov Gallery