[2] The painting features a nude, large woman sitting on a bed in a colorfully decorated room with flowery wallpaper.

Initial sketches show the woman holding a strip of fabric covering tips of her breasts and specifically the nipples.

Russian Orthodox Church Metropolitan, who visited the premiere, said that "the Devil steered the painter's reckless hand while he was creating".

Upon viewing The Beauty at its Berlin premiere at the Unter Den Linden gallery, George Loukomski, an art critic, labelled the painting "The Yaroslavlian Danaë".

The original was kept by the family of the artist and was eventually confiscated by the communist authorities during the Stalin's purges in 1937–38, and since then is stored at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.