Young Widow
1850 (?)
- Period Early 19th century
- CategoryGenre Painting
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The Russian Museum owns what is possibly the earliest and most poetic version of Pavel Fedotov’s composition (the completed canvas hangs in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow). The theme of the hard life of women was popular in Russian genre painting in the midnineteenth century. Fedotov often returned to the subject and here he resolves it in a poignant and generalized manner. In accordance with his personal creative method, the artist turns the painting into the multiple story of a young woman left without subsistence following the death of her husband. The woes of life have unexpectedly collapsed on the head of the young widow and now she is threatened with loneliness and poverty. Her property has been sealed by a bailiff and will soon be carted off to pay debts. Russian Museum: From Icons to the Modern Times. Palace Editions, St Petersburg, 2015. P. 175.