Painting by Kustodiev “The Merchant for Tea”


“Merchant for tea” – one of the most famous paintings of the great Russian artist Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev (1878 – 1927). The painting was painted in 1918, canvas, oil, 120 x 120 cm. Currently he is in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

Russian artist Kustodiev was not only a skilful artist who masterfully could see the details and details, depict the world around him and convey the atmosphere, but also a passionate connoisseur of the beauty of Russian traditions. His paintings, which convey the life and life of people, became clear to the ordinary spectator, and from that recognition of Kustodiev among ordinary people and art lovers was almost universal. One of his paintings “The Merchant for Tea” speaks better than any words about Kustodiev’s extraordinary talent.

The picture shows a merchant woman – a beautiful and rosy woman. She sits on an open balcony on a warm summer day. In the background, a Russian landscape

opens with greenery, houses and white-stone churches. The woman is a beautiful and expensive dress. On the table is a traditional Russian samovar, sliced ​​watermelon, fruit and sweets. The merchant is drinking tea from a saucer. A calm and carefree tea party environment is emphasized by a lazy cat that rubs against the mistress’s shoulder. On the next balcony a different merchant family drinks tea.

Half-asleep atmosphere of the picture is the embodiment of wealth and prosperity, however the merchant’s wealth and carelessness are shown ironically, without malice. Kustodiev offers to look at a typical day from the merchants’ life through the eyes of an ordinary observer, not an envious person or an opponent. The painting was written in a troubled year for Russia. 1918 – this is the time of revolutionary sentiments, when the proletarians were against such wealth and struggled in every way against the merchant class, the kulaks, tsarism and so on.

However, despite this, Kustodiev created a picture far from the ideals of the new government and a new ideology – communism.

A full, burly woman who sits at a rich table and demonstrates her own security does not want to be condemned. On the contrary, the image of the Russian merchant seems a little ironic, kind and even innocent.

Many in those years it seemed that Russia under the yoke of Soviet power had perished and would never be reborn. What was this work for Kustodiyev? Perhaps it is a tribute to the epoch that is leaving forever, which over the next few years will be completely destroyed and rebuilt according to new patterns, and perhaps in this way Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev expressed the hope that after surviving the revolution, Russia will soon return to its traditions and former the order of things.

In 1918, when Russia was hit by a revolution, famine and devastation, many dreamed of a life that was left in the past, and this picture is a colorful memory, the last ray of light of the former way of life.


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Painting by Kustodiev “The Merchant for Tea”