Horsewoman is a painting by the Russian artist Karl Bryullov (1799–1852), produced in 1832 and preserved in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (inventory no.

In their reviews, the Italians compared Bryullov to Peter Paul Rubens and Antonis van Dyck[5] and wrote that they had not yet seen "an equestrian portrait conceived and executed with such excellence".

[9] Art historian Olga Lyaskovskaya wrote that the creation of "Horsewoman" was "a significant step forward in achieving the new goals set by the artist".

The painting aroused great interest, there were many reactions, collected and translated by the artist Mikhail Zheleznov, Bryullov's student and his first biographer.

[6] A detailed review of the painting was also given in the article "Fine Arts in Milan in 1832" (Italian: Le belle arti in Milano nell anno 1832), published in the September 1832 issue of the magazine "Nuovo Ricoglitore".

Noting the merits of Bryullov's painting, they wrote: "The horse <...> beautifully drawn and staged, <...> moves, hot, snorts, roars.

[8] In a letter from Paris dated July 6 (18), 1874, the artist Ilya Repin wrote to Pavel Tretyakov: "Bogolyubov asked me to inform you that some Countess Samoylova has some things by K.P.

[9][2] On 27 February 1893, the Art Department of the Society gave Tretyakov a receipt confirming that the painting "The Horsewoman" had been sold to him for 2000 rubles and that they had received the full amount.

The dark headdress shades "the soft tenderness of the ruddy face, the elastic curls of blond hair and the bright blue eyes".

One reviewer wrote: "Although one might think that the painting intends to preserve the features of the faces of the two girls at such a young age, when they are so often changing, the horse, which occupies most of the space of the picture, almost exclusively attracts the attention of the viewer, and perhaps it would not be impertinent to say that the painter also preferred it to everything else and concentrated his knowledge and effort in it".

[50] In a monograph on Bryullov's work published in 1940, the art historian Olga Lyaskovskaya made a comparative analysis of the image of the rider with the female images in "Portrait of the Countess Y. P. Samoylova with her pupil Giovannina Pacini and an Arapchonok" (1834, Hillwood, Washington) and the study "Portrait of Giovannina" (1832, oil) in the Kiev Museum of Russian Art.

On the basis of this comparison, Lyaskovskaya concluded that the model for the rider was Giovannina: according to her, "the charming stranger is the same teenage girl who, perhaps for the first time, put on a long amazon and beautified herself on horseback in front of invisible spectators".

[52] In a book on Bryullov's portraits written in 1956, the art historian Magdalina Rakova suggested that the little girl in the painting "Horsewoman" was another pupil of Countess Samoylova, Amacilia Pacini.

[52] There is another important drawing known as "Portrait of Giovannina Pacini" (paper, graphite pencil, watercolor, whitewash, varnish, oval 21.1 × 17.1 cm), kept in a private collection.

[24] However, the journalist Nikolai Prozhogin managed to find in one of the publications a reference to a notarized deed of Samoilova, in which she bequeathed her house to "the orphan Giovannina Carmine Bertolotti, daughter of the deceased Don Gerolamo and Mrs. Clementina Perri", whom the Countess "took to herself".

[9] There is another version, mentioned in the publications of historians and journalists Ivan Bocharov and Yuliya Glushakova, according to which Bryullov's painting does not depict Giovannina, but the singer Maria Malibran (1808–1836), who was fond of riding.

This version is held by the staff of the Italian theater "La Scala", which keeps an old lithograph with the image of "Horsewoman", as well as a gift certificate from a certain I. Prado (or Preda), stating that the painting depicts Malibran.

[61] Nevertheless, modern Russian art historians consider it a generally accepted fact that Brullov's painting depicts Countess Samoylova's pupils Giovannina and Amacilia.

[9][2] The artist and critic Alexander Benois dedicated two chapters to the analysis of Bryullov's work in his book "History of Russian Painting in the 19th century", the first edition of which appeared in 1902.

Without hiding his negative attitude to academic painting, Benois wrote that "among all the mass of Bryullov's works there are some in which his enormous talent still broke through".

[63] Art historian Olga Lyaskovskaya, in the monograph "Karl Bryullov" published in 1940, wrote that the famous "Horsewoman", painted in 1832, was "a significant step forward in the achievement of new goals set by the artist".

Lyaskovskaya noted that in this work "the artist's mission goes beyond portraiture": he tries to unite all the creatures depicted on the canvas in a single action, as on the theatrical stage.

[64] In the book "History of Russian Art of the first half of the 19th century", published in 1951, the art historian Natalia Kovalenskaya wrote that unlike the portraits of the 18th century with their conventional decorative backgrounds, in such ceremonial portraits as "Horsewoman" Bryullov "brings a natural environment of life to the persons portrayed", thus approaching genre painting and realism.

Along with the progressiveness of this approach, Kovalenskaya also noted its internal contradictions, which are particularly evident in the creation of "Horsewoman": on the one hand, "Bryullov could not afford to turn a ceremonial portrait into a simple genre scene" and to give a romantic interpretation to the image of a galloping horse, whose rapid running stops the rider, and on the other hand, "he did not dare to give the image of the rider itself that excitement which would be appropriate after such a turbulent race.

[39] In the monograph "Karl Bryullov – portraitist", published in 1956, the art historian Magdalina Rakova called "Horsewoman" "a typical example of a portrait painting", in which all the characters are "united in a simple action, placed in the landscape, surrounded by various "four-legged friends".

[45] Art historian Marina Shumova wrote that the peculiarity of Bryullov's ceremonial portraits was "a combination of representativity and vitality, conventionality and precise observation of life" in her book "Russian Painting of the first half of the 19th Century", published in 1978.

According to Manin, the canvas "manifested all the impassive beauty of Bryullov's mastery, the vitality of which was reduced by the staging of the composition and the conventionality of the perception of the object.

The impenetrably calm face and figure of the rider contrast with everything that is or has been in motion – the girl running out onto the terrace, the horse stopping abruptly, the excited dog and the fluttering veil.