Prince Felix Yusupov 1925

Zinaida Serebriakova captured Prince Felix Yusupov with pastels, and what strikes me is the tentative quality, like a whisper of a portrait. Imagine Serebriakova, charcoal in hand, stepping back, squinting, then adding a stroke of grey. The surface is built up with layers of powdery pigment, each mark contributing to the overall form, like whispers adding up to a shout. The blue jacket is particularly resonant, its dark hues softened by the pastel medium, yet retaining a sense of depth and weight. Think about what it would have been like to capture someone like Prince Felix, his infamous reputation, and how the artist might have wanted to convey that in the painting. Serebriakova’s soft lines and muted colors create a sense of longing, a ghost of a person. Like other portraitists of her time, Serebriakova was playing with perception, with how we see and remember. This piece is a reminder that painting is a conversation across time, an echo of one artist in another, each of us adding our own voice to the chorus.