Information about the author:
Elena A. Mikhailova
Elena A. Mikhailova, PhD in History of Arts, Head of the sector of Russian funds of the 18th–21st centuries Department of Manuscripts, The National Library of Russia, Sadovaya 18, 191069 St. Petersburg, Russia, Associate Professor of the Department of History of Western European and Russian Culture, St. Petersburg State University, Universitetskaya nab., 7–9, 199034 St. Petersburg, Russia.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4322-5117
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Abstract:
The article presents plots based on materials from the collections of the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian National Library and related to the painting by A.P. Ryabushkin “Amusing Peter I in a Circle.” They provide additional information on the history of creation and understanding of the author’s intention of the painting, and also reveal some of the features of the artist’s creative process. The first plot is connected with a fragment of a letter from A.P. Ryabushkin to his close friend I.F. Tyumenev. The letter is considered in terms of revealing not only the content of the picture, but also its artistic concept through the parallel of fine and literary texts. The second part of the article publishes an epic created by Tyumenev as a literary illustration of one of the variants of Ryabushkin’s painting and recorded by him in the unpublished “My Autobiography.”