This painting is based on one of three surviving fragments of a larger composition entitled Reaping. After creating several versions, Zinaida Serebryakova cut them up in frustration, retaining the better sections, including this one. Covering the cut marks with the background and placing the correct painterly accents, Serebryakova turned the composition into a new, independent work. The peasants prepare to sit down and eat, in an unruffled and dignified manner. This work reflects Zinaida Serebryakova’s love of monumental forms and images.

Serebryakova Zinaida

Serebryakova, Zinaida Yevgenyevna (1884, Neskuchnoe (Kursk Gubernia) - 1967, Paris)
Painter, graphic artist. Sister of Yevgeny Lanceray and niece of Alexander Benois. Studied under Ilya Repin at the Princess Maria Tenisheva School (1901), at Osip Braz's studio in St Petersburg (1903-1905) and the Academic de la Grande-Chaumiere in Paris (1905-1906). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1910). Contributed to the Exhibition of Modern Female Portraits (1910) and the exhibitions of the Union of Russian Artists (1910), World of Art (1911-1924; member from 1910), Russian Landscapes (1918-1919), House of Arts (1920), International Exhibition in Pittsburgh (1925) and the Exhibitions of Russian Art in New York (1924), Toronto (1925), Los Angeles (1925), Paris (1927, 1932), Brussels (1928), Berlin (1930) and Belgrade (1930). Emigrated to Paris (1924).