Valentin Serov

Portrait of Ida Rubinstein. 1910.
Tempera and charcoal on canvas. 147 x 233 cm (57 7/8 x 91 3/4 in.).

 The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.

(detail)

Valentin Serov (St Petersburg, 19 Jan. 1865 - Moscow, 5 Dec. 1911).

Russian painter and graphic artist, son of the composer Alexander Serov. He studied privately under Ilya Repin from an early age and then in 1880–85 at the Academy in St Petersburg, where he became a friend of Mikhail Vrubel. His work includes landscapes, genre pictures, and historical scenes, as well as book illustrations, but he is best known as a portraitist. He painted many of the leading Russian celebrities of his time, particularly artists, musicians, and writers.

Serov was a member of the World of Art group and some of his later work shows a tendency towards flat Art Nouveau stylization. The most remarkable example is a nude, almost monochromatic portrait of the dancer Ida Rubinstein.

Ida Lvovna Rubinstein (5 October 1885 – 20 September 1960) was a famous Russian balerina, actress, and iconic Belle Époque beauty.