Depicted is a real situation at the estate of Grigory Tarnovsky, a wealthy landowner and patron of the arts. Artists, musicians and writers were frequent visitors to his home. In this case, the persons depicted are composer Mikhail Glinka (1804–1857), painter Vasily Sternberg, landowner Grigory Tarnovsky (1790s–1854) and his friend Nikolai Markevich (1804–1860).

Sternberg Vasily

STERNBERG, Vasily Ivanovich
1818, St Petersburg - 1845, Rome
Painter, draughtsman, genre artist, watercolourist, landscapist, cartoonist, interior designer. Son of a teacher at the Mining Cadet Corps. Made copies of Mikhail Lebedev''s works. Audited classes at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1835–1838). Enrolled in Professor Maxim Vorobyov''s landscape and perspective painting class. Awarded a second-class silver medal (1836) for Fair in Ichnya and Herd, minor gold medal (1836) for seven works painted from life in the Ukraine and a major gold medal for Blessing Easter Cakes in the Ukraine (1836). Awarded the title of artist (1839). Worked at Grigory Tarnovsky''s Kachanovka estate in Chernigov Province (summer of 1836–1838). Fellow of the Imperial Academy of Arts in Italy (from 1840). Lived and worked in Rome, Naples, Florence and Milan.