Russian Venus
Boris Kustodiev, 1926
Russian Venus is a painting by Boris Kustodiev dated 1926, one of his final works. It transposes the myth of Venus into an everyday scene: a fully nude young woman has just entered a banya, the Russian steam bath, and smiles at the viewer while her long golden hair falls down her head. In her hand she holds a bundle of birch twigs used in these baths, and beside her are a block of soap and a bucket of hot water. The foam and bubbles recall the sea foam from which, according to myth, the goddess was born, and the artist himself wrote the title on a sheet of paper attached to the bench.
The work also has a curious material history. Kustodiev painted it on the reverse of an earlier canvas, On the Terrace (1906), which shows his family taking tea. After the canvas was damaged in a museum flood, it was restored, and a special frame was built so that both sides can be seen. The identity of the model remains uncertain: the painter's daughter or a former art model from the Academy of Fine Arts have been proposed. It is now held by the Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum.
- Painter
- Boris Kustodiev
- Date
- 1926
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas
- Dimensions
- 200 × 175 cm
- Museum
- Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum, Nizhny Novgorod
- Genre
- mythological painting
- Depicts
- Venus
More works by Boris Kustodiev
