Repin's "Penates"—Luxury and Ruin

Back in 1918, Vasily Fedorovich Levi, an amateur artist from Kharkiv, was fortunate enough to finally meet his idol, Ilya Efimovich Repin.

11825756_1615639208653417_8767731152119739770_n — *Vasily Filippovich Levi (September 17, 1878, Kharkiv — February 13, 1953, Stockholm) — lawyer, collector, artist*

Levi himself admitted that, literally from his youth—even before he had met him—he had already idolized Repin, admiring not only his artistic mastery, which he considered undeniable, but also the civic stance of the artist, who championed justice, honesty, and human dignity.

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From 1900 onward, Ilya Efimovich Repin lived at his estate, “Penaty,” which was located in Finland, in the summer resort village of Kuokkala.

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When Levi arrived, he found Kuokkala to be a place of poverty and desolation. In his memoirs, he writes:

When I first met I. E. Repin, Kuokkala was a deserted, largely abandoned, and heavily dilapidated place. The few residents who remained there—mostly small-time characters—were insignificant compared to the milieu in which the Penates were born and raised…

The once-famous “circles” have died out. Stunned by the upheaval in both public and private life, the “ordinary people” throughout the Finnish periphery not only had no interest in Repin’s social circles, but in most cases had forgotten or were unaware of Repin’s very existence. Repin lived alone in Penat, in poverty (poverty and starvation were all around him)…
Repin’s poverty was so great that, as he himself claimed, the only thing that saved him was having a good goat on his farm, whose milk formed the basis of his meager diet…

Finally, I was led into a low, sweltering little room… A piano stood against the wall. There, I was warmly greeted by a small, sprightly, lively, slight old man with picturesque gray hair and a gray, unkempt beard. This was Ilya Repin, who had captivated my imagination since childhood. He was wearing a strange outfit: a tuxedo from the time of Alexander I with a high stand-up collar, trimmed with braid and adorned with medals. I was taken aback. What an eccentric sight! Later I learned that this uniform was part of the props for the painting *Pushkin at the Lyceum Exam* and had been intended for Derzhavin. Repin would sometimes “wear it out” during these idle days, just as he did with some of the other wonderful costumes from the extensive collection of props.