Natalya Chernysheva

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Natalya Chernysheva
Yevgenia Kirkaldi – Behind the Identity of Ilya Mashkov’s Mode

#2 2010 (27)

The Tretyakov Gallery holds a portrait of Yevgenia Ivanovna Kirkaldi (“Lady and a Chinese Woman”) made by Ilya Mashkov in 1910. One of Mashkov's most beautiful works, it has featured at numerous exhibitions, appearing first at a show of the “Jack of Diamonds” group in St. Petersburg in 1910, and is well known to both the general public and to art experts. However, next to nothing was known about the sitter. Today, thanks to Kirkaldi's granddaughter Anna Kirillovna Bystrova (née Snesareva) we have photographs and biographical information about the female student of Mashkov, who for a time was also one of his favourite models.