SOFIA KUVSHINNIKOVA (1847-1907) AND ANTONINA RZHEVSKAYA (1861-1934) Early spring by the river

signed in Cyrillic and dated ‘S. Kuvshinnikova A. L. Rzhevsky 1903’ (lower right) oil on board 15.5 х 24 cm painted in 1903 Sofia Petrovna Kuvshinnikova was a Russian landscape painter. For many years, she was the pupil and the mistress of Isaac Levitan and served as the inspiration for the lead character in a short story by Anton Chekhov ‘The Grasshopper, 1892’. She travelled with the Peredvizhniki group, and his modest apartment became a gathering place for the creative community including Levitan, Anton Chekhov, Perov, Gogol and others. Sofia Petrovna Kuvshinnikova also known by masculine pseudonym A. L. Rzhevsky, was a Russian painter, primarily of domestic genre scenes. She was one of the only two women who worked with the Peredvizhniki and friend of Sofia Kuvshinnikova.