Portrait study of a young girl

Serov's portrait study of a young girl from around 1888, now in the National Museum in Warsaw, belongs to a tradition of study portraiture that was distinct from commissioned work — these were paintings made for the artist's own development or interest, often of family members, students, or individuals from Serov's immediate circle. The late 1880s were a crucial period for Serov: he had already painted his celebrated 'Girl with Peaches' (1887) and 'Girl in Sunlight' (1888), the two luminous early masterpieces that established his reputation as a painter of unparalleled ability to capture light and youthful presence. A portrait study of a young girl from the same period therefore belongs to the same sustained investigation of how light falls on young faces and figures, how the specific quality of a particular time of day and quality of illumination can be captured in paint. These works draw on the Impressionist tradition that Serov had absorbed through his contact with European art while also transforming it through a distinctively Russian sensibility. The Warsaw collection represents one of the many dispersals of Russian and Central European art that occurred through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Oil on canvas with the luminous, light-saturated handling of Serov's late 1880s period, when he was most directly engaged with Impressionist approaches to natural light. Studies like this typically have a freshness and informality that distinguishes them from commissioned portraits, with looser brushwork and less concern for conventional finish.